Meals for a Month

Overview

In a world of abundance, where ample food exists for every man, woman and child, almost billion people go hungry every day.

World Food Program USA (WFP USA) engages U.S. entities and citizens to support the United Nations World Food Program (WFP), the largest humanitarian organization in the world, working to put hunger at the center of the international agenda and promoting policies, strategies and operations that directly benefit the poor and hungry.

With generous support, WFP provides outreach opportunities, educational activities, granting millions of dollars to WFP's relief programs and collaborating with various organizations and groups to build support for U.S. food assistance programs.

Mission

World Food Program USA (WFP USA) is a U.S.-based, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that focuses on building support in the United States for the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) and other hunger relief operations.

WFP USA unites organizations and individuals committed to solving world hunger. Our education, advocacy and fundraising efforts in the United States support WFP’s life-saving global food assistance and development programs.

WFP's five objectives include:
1.Save lives and protect livelihoods in emergencies
2.Prepare for emergencies
3.Restore and rebuild lives after emergencies
4.Reduce chronic hunger and undernutrition everywhere
5.Strengthen the capacity of countries to reduce hunger

With generous support from donors, World Food Program USA has helped channel millions of dollars to support WFP operations around the world. WFP is providing life saving food to hungry people in some the world's poorest places.

Programs

School Meals
The idea is simple; the impact is significant. Serving food at school not only helps alleviate hunger among the world’s poorest children, it also helps get them into school, providing them with an important key to a better future – an education.

Where school meals programs are offered, enrollment and attendance rates increase significantly, particularly for girls. Students also stay in school longer. Academic performance improves, as well; students with a full stomach concentrate better and comprehend material more quickly.

Thanks to WFP, more than 20 million children in over 60 of the world’s poorest countries are being fed every school day.

Focus on Women
Some 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry people are women and girls. This is because women often have unequal access to resources, education and income, and because they participate less in decision-making.

When hunger and undernutrition affect women, they also affect their children. More than 19 million children are born annually with low birth weight, often the result of their mothers receiving inadequate nutrition before and during pregnancy.

WFP is committed to using its policies, programs and actions to promote women’s empowerment as a key to improving food security for all.

Food for Work
WFP’s food for work programs offer food as payment when people go to work—building roads, bridges, hospitals, schools, ports and other essential elements of their communities’ infrastructure. Meanwhile, food for training programs provide food for those who participate in projects that teach a skill, such as sewing or gardening, or offer education on nutrition and health issues.

Purchase for Progress
WFP supports initiatives that help empower local farmers in developing countries and address long-term hunger needs. The Purchase for Progress (P4P) program aims to give small-scale farmers access to reliable markets and the opportunity to sell their surplus crops to WFP at competitive prices. By purchasing crops from local farmers, the program helps them increase their household incomes – a critical component in solving hunger and poverty at the very core. Buying locally also helps WFP distribute food more quickly to those who need it most.

HIV/AIDS
In the developing world, food can make all the difference for HIV/AIDS patients. With food, their bodies can tolerate the drugs necessary to treat the illness. This allows them to get back on their feet, return to work and support their families. It also allows the children of HIV/AIDS patients to go back to school, since they no longer need to care for their parents at home.