One Meal a Day

One Meal a Day

School Lunches for Armee de Salut

When Grace and I went to Haiti we expected to meet a little girl named Berlande who we recently sponsored through World Wide Village.  We excitedly and anxiously waited until Thursday when we were going to finally get to meet her.  After a long day at the clinic, with a backpack full of snacks, clothes, toys and school supplies, we walked through Luly looking for her, asking people along the way if they knew where she lived.  We finally reached the home of the school principal who pointed in the general direction of where she lived but then  told us that Berlande didn’t go to their school anymore.  After processing this for a moment, wondering if we should try to find her anyway, or how and when we would get a new sponsorship and now what to do with the backpack, we asked if there were any other little girls about the age who needed sponsorship.  The principal said there were many.  Then he said, “There’s one right here,” and pointed to a little girl in the group of children who came to meet us.  Ismalie, 2nd grade and just the right size for the dresses we had packed in the backpack!  Ismalie’s parents are both deceased and she lives with her uncle who is the school principal, her aunt who was expecting a baby, their 2 or 3 other children and the grandma in a house about the size of our kitchen and dinning room.  Doesn’t Ismalie have the sweetest smile?  

This fundraiser is for school lunches for Ismalie and the other children who go to her school.  

Many of the children Grace and I met while in Haiti were hungry.  For some kids, the only meal they get each day is the lunch at school.  It’s no wonder kids are going hungry - Haiti is the poorest country in the northern hemisphere leaving two and a half million Haitians living in extreme poverty with two thirds of the population living on less than $2 per day.   

World Wide Village is working on changing these statistics.  School Sponsorship is one of the ways WWV is helping.  Their 5th and newest sponsored school is the school Ismalie attends - Armee du Salut in the village of Luly.  They currently cannot provide school lunches on a regular basis to this school but with your help they can be closer to their goal of providing one meal a day for the kids attending each of their sponsored schools.

Schools providing nutritious food is so important because 87% of children in rural Haiti do not receive the minimum ration of daily food.  Not only will it help the children avoid the effects of malnutrition, but it will also help promote learning.  

$60 can feed the entire Armee du Salut – Luly school for one day.  Our goal with this fundraiser is to supply lunch for this school for one month.  Would you consider sponsoring a day of school lunches for the kids at the Armee du Salut School?

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? ... “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’”    Matthew 25