Kids Against Hunger’s first priority when providing food is always to feed starving children and their families – regardless of race, gender, faith, or other characteristics over which the recipients have no control. This includes those who are starving to death, malnourished, or dying of hunger-related diseases. The second priority is to feed those individuals who are categorized as “hungry”.

When distributing meals, we generally work with Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) in the
destination countries. We rarely form partnerships with foreign government agencies for food shipment purposes because the governments of many of the countries our meals are being shipped to are not reliable, which is part of the reason for the existence of a hunger crisis in the first place. We have had much more success working with NGOs, and - more specifically - we seek out NGOs that offer economic and community development programs for the families being served.

We work closely with our distribution partners - churches and other nonprofit organizations, and U.S. government agencies operating in foreign countries - to manage the distribution of Kids Against Hunger’s meals. Accountability is essential. We seek out organizations that have a proven track record of successfully getting the food to the children, distributing it properly, and being able to handle the responsibilities of a feeding program – all while keeping the food out of the hands of corrupt government officials and criminals. We require our feeding partners to document how they distribute the food and to provide us with testimonials and pictures of the children who receive the meals whenever possible.

We recognize that it is not enough to simply fill people’s stomachs and walk away. It is not enough to just send food. This is why we partner with organizations who promote continued sustainability. What that means is that some of our feeding partners are setting up schools, explaining to local people sustainable farming techniques and ways to improve their health. They administer necessary emergency medicines and educate people about proper hygiene and basic first aid. There are many efforts made to teach the local people how to advance so that they are never on the brink of starvation again. In this context, our food is often used to “jump start” the bodies and minds of severely undernourished children and their families. Only when the most basic need of nutrition is met (leading to an improvement in the overall health of the recipients) are our feeding partners able to assist those people in finding ways to become self-sufficient. Although this can be costly and time-consuming process, we have seen time and time again that it works.

Here are some of the organizations that Kids Against Hunger has worked with in 2011: