Today I want to tell you about a small charity which is having a big impact. Mary's Meals, named after Mary, the mother of Jesus feeds over 1.1 million children at school across the world. The idea is that by providing a nutritious filling lunch for the children at school their hunger decreases and their educational attainment improves, providing a ladder out of poverty. The scheme also helps the community around the school by employing people to build kitchens and cook the food and by buying the food from local providers. It is a Win-Win situation for everyone involved and the aim is to make the local community responsible for the scheme eventually so that then the charity can move on and provide help somewhere else.
You can find out more about the scheme at www.marysmeals.org and the website includes stories from the children who have been helped and pictures of how the scheme adapts to local conditions. At the moment 93p out of every £1 goes directly to funding feeding and £13.90 is enough to feed a child for a year. I find this idea inspirational and am reminded of the bible story where the loaves and fishes from one person are used to feed a crowd of thousands !
I have supported this charity since it started in Argyll in Scotland. The volunteers on the phone are so nice when you call them to donate. The speakers who come out to groups are also volunteers and give a factual presentation of Mary's Meals. Last year our U3A here in Hamilton decided to donate backpacks after a presentation and the speaker was astonished when we asked for them to be uplifted-we had collected about 70 gilled backpacks and a van came to uplift them. Catriona
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