FAQs
I work with an organization in XYZ country and would like to request food aid from you. Is that possible and what is the process?
Kids Against Hunger relies on the expertise of reliable and trustworthy feeding partners to get the food to its destination safely. We work with non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in over 40 countries to get our food shipped and distributed. A 40 ft. container of meals includes over $65,000 worth of food. As a nonprofit organization, we have to raise the funds for ingredients and supplies to package the food. We work with our feeding partners to cover our costs so that we can continue to provide our highly nutritious meals to starving children worldwide.
How was Kids Against Hunger started?
The organization was founded in March 1999 by Richard Proudfit, a successful entrepreneur. In 1974 Richard volunteered on a medical mission to Honduras after Hurricane Fifi had ravaged that country. Profoundly affected by the starvation he saw among the children there, he made a decision to commit his life and financial resources to solving the enormous problem of world hunger. His life’s work became clear to him – feed these starving children.
Richard Proudfit enlisted leading executives at Cargill, Pillsbury, General Mills, and Archer Daniels Midland to formulate a food that would meet all the nutritional requirements of severely malnourished children for physical growth and mental development. The result was the creation of a balanced, high nutrition food that can reverse the starvation process, and restore a child’s health and mental alertness.
To learn more about Richard Proudfit, please click here.
What is your mission and vision statement?
Our mission at Kids Against Hunger is to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the USA and to feed starving children throughout the world. We ship meals to starving children and their families in over 60 countries through partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide.
It is our vision to set up food packaging satellites in the USA and around the world, and to spearhead community and youth volunteer packaging of Kids Against Hunger’s highly nutritious meals. It is also our vision to deliver Kids Against Hunger’s food through partnerships with humanitarian organizations in the USA and worldwide.
What is Kids Against Hunger?
Kids Against Hunger packages highly nutritious, life-saving meals for starving children and malnourished children and their families in developing countries and the United States. The goal of the organization is for its meals to provide a stable nutritional base from which recipient families can move their families from starvation to self-sufficiency. Kids Against Hunger accomplishes this by mobilizing the energy and caring of American children, teens, and adults on behalf of hungry children around the world. Kids Against Hunger seeks to end the literal hunger of children receiving the meals, but also satisfies a hunger among prosperous Americans – a hunger for meaning and contribution.
Fulfilling Kids Against Hunger’s mission requires a vast food packaging capacity to meet an endless demand for food. Because physical constraints of the International Headquarters facility initially prevented further growth in production, the organization began expanding its operations by setting up food packaging “satellites”. Kids Against Hunger believes that the best way to engage the largest number of people is through a decentralized, locally-based network of food packaging satellites that are active in their community. This model engages and empowers people to realize they can make a difference in solving the worldwide problem of starvation and establishes relationships with organizations such as Kiwanis, Rotary, and many faith-based groups of widely varying denominations. This growth strategy also allows the organization to continuously expand its food packaging capacity and volunteer involvement.
The process of establishing a meal packaging satellite is easy. Individuals and groups who are passionate about feeding children license the Kids Against Hunger name, food formulation, and packaging process. This agreement governs product content and quality, as well as adherence to best practices. Each satellite is a separate 501(c)(3) nonprofit corporation, and all of them are using volunteers in the same manual process to package the standardized food formulation for distribution to dozens of countries all over the globe.
It is Kids Against Hunger’s goal to develop this food packaging network, over the next ten years, with a two-tiered approach of local packaging satellites and regional divisions. The organization seeks to set up 50 divisions and 500 packaging satellites across the USA. Through this structure, Kids Against Hunger expects to generate the capacity to produce over one billion meals per year.
Since its launch, Kids Against Hunger has provided over 1 billion meals for children and their families in more than 60 countries through the efforts of hundreds of thousands of volunteers.
How much do the meals cost?
The average program cost to produce each Kids Against Hunger meal is 25 cents.
Each bag of food (390 grams) includes six one-cup servings.
Each 32 lb. box of food holds 36 bags of food. That is the equivalent of 216 meals at a program cost of only $54. Each 40 ft. container load of food includes 285,120 meals or 40 pallets of food at a program cost of approx. $71,280.
Kids Against Hunger purchases the ingredients for its meals at very competitive prices through longstanding relationships with reliable suppliers. The necessary funds are raised through donations from individuals, corporations, churches, and other organizations.