Mary's Meals Celebrates its 20th Anniversary in White City
Supporters of school feeding charity gather for special event
Mary’s Meals volunteers enjoying the 20th anniversary event
School feeding charity Mary’s Meals celebrated its 20th anniversary recently at a special event in White City.
People from all walks of life came together at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church to hear news of the charity’s latest work and to discover different ways to support its mission to reach more hungry children.
The event, which featured a special showing of a documentary about the Mary’s Meals story, Child 31, raised more than £750 for the charity.
The charity serves nutritious school meals to children living in 20 of the world’s poorest, and often most difficult, locations, including Ethiopia, South Sudan, Syria and Lebanon. The promise of a good meal attracts desperately hungry children into the classroom, giving them the energy to learn their way to a better future. It costs just £15.90 to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a full school year.
The Mary’s Meals campaign was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane Barrow visited Malawi during a famine and met a mother dying from AIDS. When Magnus asked her eldest son, Edward, what his dreams were in life, he replied simply, “I want to have enough food to eat and to go to school one day.”
Mary’s Meals is committed to spending at least 93% of donations directly on its charitable activities. This is only possible because much of the charity’s work is done by volunteers.
Gerrard McMahon, supporter engagement officer for Mary’s Meals, says, “We thank everyone who came along to celebrate and find out more about how they can help us reach out to the little ones waiting for Mary’s Meals.
“Mary’s Meals is a grassroots global movement and thanks to the contribution of people in London, we can keep our promise to the 2,279,941 children who rely on our meals, while striving to reach the next hungry child.
“We are experts in reaching hungry children – and we’ve been able to reach so many little ones over the past 20 years because of the kindness of those who believe in our mission.”
To find out more about the work of Mary’s Meals, please visit www.marysmeals.org.uk.
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October 24, 2022