learn More About Feed the Hungry
Feed the Hungry San Miguel started in 1984 when members of St. Paul’s Anglican Church began preparing beans, rice, agua fresca, and tortillas to feed the indigent hungry in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato, Mexico.
After several years, Board Member and now President Emeritus, Tony Adlerbert, decided to create a new business model for Feed the Hungry. From this decision came the 2000 funding of the first Feed the Hungry kitchen in the rural community of Los Galvanes.
From these humble beginnings, Feed the Hungry has grown to 25 rural kitchens and 3 urban kitchens that feed children a nutritious hot meal every school day of the year at a cost of nearly $.60 cents per meal, or less than US $3 per week per child.
Additionally, Feed the Hungry provides supplemental food to the kitchens of eight San Miguel charitable organizations that feed orphans, the elderly disadvantaged and people with special needs.
35 Kitchens:
- 23 rural rancho school kitchens constructed and operated by Feed the Hungry.
- 4 urban school kitchens constructed and operated by Feed the Hungry.
- 8 local charity organizations’ kitchens supplied by Feed the Hungry (feeding 481).
- Feeds nearly 4000 school children every school day of the year.
Feed the Hungry has a cooperating relationship with Apoyo a Gente Emprendedora A.C. Donors fund the self-sufficiency initiative called the Family Gardens Program, successfully underway in rural communities where Feed the Hungry operates kitchens. The first school garden is underway.
In September 2010, a new program was initiated to measure the nutritive health of all children benefiting from the Feed the Hungry school lunch program. All the children are initially measured for weight, height, and skin fold and then rated as to being severely malnourished, malnourished, normal, fat, or obese. A-face-to-face conference is scheduled for each mother whose child is severely malnourished or obese on how to correct their nutritional deficiency through improved diet. Workshops on family nutrition are conducted at each community to train mothers on the essentials of family nutrition. The program is followed up by repeating the measurements every six months.
Feed the Hungry operates with financial funding from donations made by hundreds of individuals, families, corporate donors, and grantor foundations.
Volunteers
Feed the Hungry consists of 230 personnel: 70 of those are Mexican employees and 160 are volunteers. Of the volunteers, ten are Mexican and the rest come from the foreign community.
The core volunteer groups are the weekday morning food distribution drivers and the Saturday morning warehouse helpers. These men and women number from 40 to 50 people.
The food-distribution drivers make the deliveries of groceries, including fresh fruits and vegetables, to each kitchen location weekday mornings. Substitute and back-up drivers provide assurance that the food will be delivered when needed.
The warehouse volunteers meet every Saturday morning to sort, weigh, and pack the food required for each kitchen as itemized from a computer-controlled inventory/foods need list.
A large group of dedicated volunteer teachers spearheads the English Language/Literacy Program in Los Ricos de Abajo, the location of a Feed the Hungry kitchen. This and the other volunteer work – creating a library, scholarships, and a community resource center -- done by this team are key to the effectiveness of Feed the Hungry.
Feed the Hungry also receives valuable help from many volunteers who contribute their time and expertise to our many events throughout the year and others who contribute their talents and skills in photography, videography, public relations, marketing, teaching, graphic design, donor relations, cooking, finance, grant proposal writing, and more.
Feed the Hungry
- Employs more than 50 local Mexican women in the management of its kitchens.
- Is supported by more than 40 core volunteers and by more than 100 volunteer persons during the course of a year.
- Is overseen by 10 professional men and women on its working Board of Trustees.
- Employs two full-time implementation managers of Programs and Finance.
- Employs one part-time business development consultant.
- Employs one part-time webmaster and online marketing consultant.
- Employs one professional chef.
- Employs one licensed nutritionist.
- Employs five kitchen supervisors, one accounting assistant and three full-time drivers and maintenance personnel.
Feed the Hungry San Miguel, Inc., is a not-for-profit organization registered as a 501(c) 3 and donations are tax deductible in the United States. Feed the Hungry A.C. is a registered Mexican not-for-profit organization.