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Bloomfield, N.J. – January 31, 2023 – International charity, Mary’s Meals has warned that the cost of feeding children in its programmes in some of the world’s poorest countries has risen by an unprecedented 20%. As a result, the charity faces significant challenges in delivering the program in 2023.  

Mary’s Meals, based in New Jersey, serves nutritious school meals in 18 countries, across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. The promise of food attracts hungry children into the classroom, where they can gain an education that can be their ladder out of poverty.

Increases in prices for commodities – such as grain, fuel and fertiliser – mean the cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a school year has increased from $21 to $25.20. This is the largest increase in the charity’s 20-year history.

Paul McMahon, Director of Communications at Mary’s Meals USA, says: “An uncertain year lies ahead, with the escalating cost of living causing much pain for both the children around the world who eat our school meals and those here in the U.S. who make our work possible.” 

“We can’t face a future where these children are forgotten, and the cycle of poverty remains unchallenged. Yet, the reality is that our income is not growing at the same rate as the cost of feeding children desperately in need.”

Mary’s Meals feeds 2,429,182 children every school day. Alongside the cost-of-living crisis, many of the countries where the charity works are impacted by conflict, climate change and the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, all of which are increasing levels of hunger and poverty. 

McMahon adds: “The relentless kindness and generosity of people here in the U.S. have helped us to grow from feeding just 200 children in Malawi in 2002 to more than 2.4 million children around the world today. It is because of these people that we approach the many challenges we face in 2023 with a deep sense of hope.”

To find out more about the work of Mary’s Meals, visit  www.marymealsusa.org 

About Mary’s Meals

• Mary’s Meals is a simple idea that works. The charity provides one daily meal in a place of learning in order to attract chronically poor children into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
• Mary’s Meals feeds more than 2.4 million children every school day in 18 countries: Benin, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Myanmar, Niger, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Yemen.
• The average global cost to feed a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year is just $25.20.
• Independently verified research from Malawi, Liberia and Zambia shows that in schools where children receive Mary’s Meals, hunger is reduced, enrolment increases, attendance improves, drop-out rates and absences fall, concentration in lessons is heightened, attainment levels increase, parents are less anxious and children are happier.
• 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.”
• Please visit marysmealsusa.org to find out more about the work of Mary’s Meals.

Media Contact

Vicky Clapham

+44 7748102695 vicky@fatrhino.co.uk