Bringing hope to even more hungry children

With your help, an incredible 160,000 children have been welcomed into the Mary’s Meals family in the last six months. This means, today, a total of 1,667,067 of the world’s poorest children will wake up to the promise of a meal at school.

Life-changing school meals are bringing new hope to some of the world’s poorest and most remote places, from war-torn South Sudan and Syria, to the mountains of Ethiopia, the rainforests of Myanmar and the deserts of northern Kenya. 

The nutritious food encourages children – who might otherwise skip school because of poverty and hunger – to come to class, giving them the energy to concentrate and learn. This is only possible because of the continuing generosity of our supporters, who give as much as they can – time, money, skills and prayer – and carry out so many little acts of love to help bring us closer to realising our vision that every child in the world receives one daily meal in a place of education.

These children from Vidia Primary School are among 10,790 children at 68 schools in Madagascar that began receiving Mary’s Meals for the first time in October 2019. 

As a low cost, no-frills charity, we work extremely hard to keep our running costs low and remain committed to ensuring that at least 93% of donations are spent directly on our charitable activities. We can only achieve this because most of our work is done by a global army of dedicated volunteers – including more than 80,000 in Malawi alone, and many throughout the UK.

Over the last three years we have been delighted to be able to keep the amount it costs to provide each individual child with a daily meal at a steady rate, despite a highly changeable global economic environment with ever-rising costs. As we reach greater numbers of children in increasingly challenging situations, and as prices rise around us, the amount it costs for Mary’s Meals to reach each child has also risen. It now costs £15.90 to feed a child for a whole school year – and each serving of Mary’s Meals costs just 8p.

Today, every plate of rice and peas, mug of porridge and bowl of maize and beans we serve is helping a hungry child to make the most of their education, giving them hope for a brighter future. And we continue to be humbled and heartened by the support we receive from people across the UK, who refuse to accept that any child in this world of plenty should endure a day without a meal.