1.  What is Kids Against Hunger?
2.  What is your mission and vision statement?
3.  How was Kids Against Hunger started?
4.  What is so special about the food you package?
5.  You package food that is being shipped worldwide. What is involved in that process?
6.  How do you decide where the food will be sent?
7.  What about local agriculture? If you ship your food for free, won't that hurt their economy?
8.  You send meals to prevent people from death by starvation. What happens when that food is gone?
9.  What types of people volunteer to package the food?
10. What are your food packaging hours?
11. Can you come to our school/church/business to do a packaging event?
12. How does the food get to hungry children, and how can you be sure it gets to them?
13. Where have you sent your food?
14. What is Kids Against Hunger’s religious affiliation?
15. Do you require the children you feed to become Christians, or your volunteers to be Christians?
16. How many food packaging locations are there? How can I find the one closest to me?
17. How do you raise the money for your food?
18. I would like to make a donation. What are my options?
19. How much of my donation actually goes towards food?
20. Is my donation to Kids Against Hunger tax deductible?
21. How can I submit another question?

1. What is Kids Against Hunger?

Every hour of every day 12 children per minute die of starvation or malnutrition related diseases. Kids Against Hunger is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to end that tragedy. Kids Against Hunger packages and ships highly nutritious, life-saving meals to starving and malnourished children in developing countries and the United States.  We do 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 poor children receiving the meals, but also satisfies a hunger among prosperous Americans, a hunger for meaning and contribution.  

We have a national packaging network made up of our headquarters facility in New Hope, Minnesota, a packaging division in Mankato, Minnesota, and satellites in 14 states and Canada staffed by volunteers who package the meals. In total, the packaging network has the capacity to produce over 20 million meals per year. We also work with other organizations seeking long term solutions to the systemic causes of hunger. Our aim is for our meals to provide a stable nutritional base from which the recipient peoples can move their families from starvation to self-sufficiency. Since its launch, Kids Against Hunger has fed about 50 million meals to children in more than 40 countries through the efforts of over 100,000 volunteers.

2. What is your mission and vision statement?

3. 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.

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4. What is so special about the food you package?

The meal ingredients are formulated by food scientists to provide a rich source of easily digestible protein, carbohydrates, and vitamins needed by an undernourished child’s body and mind. The food is also acceptable to the broad diversity of ethnic tastes and religious differences around the world. The food offers all 9 of the essential amino acids required for complete nutrition, something that can’t be said about other typical food relief sources such as rice or beans alone. It is also very simple to prepare, requiring only 6 cups of boiling water to make a complete meal.

Seeing is believing:

Her bloated belly                     After 18 months

shows that she is                     of eating Kids Against

severely malnourished...           Hunger's food...

... all grown up!

5. You package food to ship worldwide. What is involved in that process?

We purchase bulk raw ingredients and store them at our warehouse. Then, volunteers like you come in and assemble the bags using our ingredients. The bags are then boxed up, loaded onto a pallet and stored to await shipment. Our international shipping is provided, free of charge, by the United States government. We tell them how many containers we have ready (a container is the trailer that semi-trucks tow) and where we want to ship it. They give us approval, pick up the cargo and transport it by plane or by ship to the destination country.

6. How do you decide where the food will be sent?

We prefer to ship where the need is the greatest, but we have to be careful. We have relationships with NGOs (non-governmental organizations) on the ground in the receiving countries and when one of our international partners appeals to us, we put them in line for a shipment. We can only ship to places where we know the food will be properly and freely distributed through an organization that can handle such an effort. Accountability is key - we need to have a good relationship with people we trust to do the right thing, because we can't always be there in the countries we're shipping to when the food is being distributed.

7. What about local agriculture? If you ship your food for free, won't that hurt their economy?

We are in constant communication with our partners on the ground regarding just such an issue. It doesn't do good for us to go into a situation where we're causing harm. Our NGOs will tell us that their region is suffering a drought and the crops have been destroyed, and what little food they do have available is too expensive for the local people. If there is a viable agricultural commodity in an area, the situation wouldn't be desperate enough for an appeal from an NGO, and we take steps to determine the actual need.

8. You send meals to prevent people from death by starvation. What happens when that food is gone?

It's not enough to simply fill the stomach and walk away. It's not enough to simply send food. This is why we partner with people on the ground who promote continued sustainability in these regions. What does that mean? Well, it means that some of our partners are setting up schools, teaching the local people how to farm and ways to improve their health. They administer necessary emergency medicines and teach 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. That's not to say we never deliver to the same place twice - sometimes the children in the area need a little extra boost of nutrition so we will go in with another smaller shipment when necessary.

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9. What types of people volunteer to package the food?

While our name implies that children are the source of our volunteers, in practice our volunteers come from all age groups and walks of life. Individuals and groups from churches, synagogues, schools, social clubs, businesses, senior centers, and civic groups are common sources of volunteers for packaging our food. Children from the fifth grade on seem to have the best experience in packaging events. Teens require minimal adult supervision and often plan their own packaging events. Some of the best volunteer experiences come when children, parents, and grandparents work together as a family. Schools and corporations often do packaging with us as a community service event.

10. What are your food packaging hours?

Since we are the corporate headquarters for the Kids Against Hunger network, we are generally only open during regular business hours. Packaging sessions can be scheduled Monday through Friday between 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m. A packaging session is usually two hours long and we therefore recommend that you schedule a starting time of no later than 2:30 p.m. to allow for cleanup. To schedule a packaging session, please call Angie at (763) 257-0202. 

We understand that many volunteers are unable to come to our office during normal business hours. If this applies to you, please contact one of our other locations in the Twin Cities metro area as they may have evening and/or weekend availability. The list of packaging locations can be found here (or by clicking on “Locations” at the top of this page).

11. Can you come to our school/church/business to do a packaging event?

We do not have a mobile packaging unit, but you are welcome to set up a time to come to our New Hope location to package the meals (30 people max.). We do several off-site packaging events each year, but are only able to do so if your team can raise the funds needed to cover the cost of ingredients and travel. To schedule a special packaging event, please contact Kathy at (763) 257-0202.

12. How does the food get to hungry children, and how can you be sure it gets to them?

We work closely with our distribution partners - churches, nonprofit organizations, and U.S. government agencies operating in poor countries - to distribute the meals prepared by our volunteers. We seek out organizations that have proven track records of successfully getting the food to the children and keeping it out of the hands of corrupt government officials and criminals. We always require our feeding partners to document how they distributed the food and provide us with pictures of the children who receive it. Below is an example:

13. Where have you sent your food?

Since Kids Against Hunger started in 1999, we have shipped food to more than 40 countries.
A partial list of the countries that have received our food is as follows:

We recently shipped over 1,000,000 of our meals to the Hurricane Katrina stricken gulf coast region in the USA.

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14. What is Kids Against Hunger’s religious affiliation?

Kids Against Hunger is a humanitarian organization that is not affiliated with or restricted to a particular religious group (nonsectarian). We do not discriminate on any basis in any way, shape or form. All religions and non-religious groups can volunteer, donate, and help in any way. We feed children from all walks of life. Some of our volunteers and satellites are driven by their love of God and helping to feed all of His children, but all are welcome to help out in any way. We have had volunteers that are Jewish, Muslim, Lutheran, Buddhist, Hutterite, Methodist, Catholic, and others. We have had volunteers with no religious ties whatsoever. Despite our various diverse backgrounds, we all want to help feed starving children.

15. Do you require the children you feed to become Christians, or your volunteers to be Christians?

Again, Kids Against Hunger is a humanitarian organization. We have only one test to feed a child – ‘is the child hungry?’ We have only one test for accepting volunteers – ‘does the volunteer want to help feed hungry children?’  We require any organization that distributes our food to give the food freely out of love for the child without coercion or religious tests. To do otherwise would be a fundamental betrayal of our core beliefs.

16. How many food packaging locations are there? How can I find the one closest to me?

We currently have satellite locations in 18 U.S. states and one in Canada. A complete list of locations can be found by clicking on the "Locations" tab at the top of this page. Since packaging schedules are different for each satellite, please contact the location of your choice directly.

17. How do you raise the money for your food?

It costs Kids Against Hunger about 23¢ to buy the ingredients, packaging, and shipping for each meal. That means when we ship a cargo container (285,120 meals) to a country, it includes $66,000 worth of food. As a nonprofit organization we raise all our funds from the generosity of individual donors, corporations, churches, synagogues, and foundations. Put simply, the more money we receive from donors, the more children we can feed.

18. I would like to make a donation. What are my options?

There are many convenient ways to support Kids Against Hunger by making a donation:

a.    Mail a check, money order, or cash to: Kids Against Hunger, 5401 Boone Avenue North, New Hope, MN 55428.

b.    Make an online donation right here on our web site (using a secure server). You can choose to have your checking or savings account debited, or have
       the donation charged to your credit card. To donate, please click on the “Donate” link at the top of the page.

c.    Sign up for monthly automatic withdrawal of your donation with your checking/savings account or credit card. The authorization form can be found here. 

d.    Make a donation through PayPal right here on our web site by clicking here.

e.    Donate supplies and services in-kind.

f.    Donate your time and effort and volunteer to package food.

19. How much of my donation actually goes towards food?

Because of a generous, ongoing donation from a company that wishes to remain anonymous, very little of your contribution goes toward our overhead costs. Nearly ninety cents of every dollar goes straight into the feeding program.

20. Is my donation to Kids Against Hunger tax deductible?

Yes. Kids Against Hunger is a 501(c)(3) organization and is approved by the IRS for tax deductible donations. 

21. How can I submit another question? 

Please feel free to submit your question for inclusion on this page. We will be adding more content to this page as the inquiries are made.

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