The yearly Day of the Dead tour offered by St. Paul's Anglican Church in San Miguel de Allende makes a big difference to more than 3,000 Mexican children a day who benefit from the work of Feed the Hungry SMA, a San Miguel-based volunteer program that provides food to local schools and day care centers.
The program now serves more than 50,000 meals monthly to the neediest children at locations in and around San Miguel. Its mission is to provide one balanced meal per day, five days a week, to nutritionally deprived children. Volunteers build kitchens, supply equipment, and hire and train cooks from within each school's community. Foods are purchased in bulk from local sources, and served from menus planned by a nutritionist. There's a weekly inventory of each kitchen to pinpoint where the hungriest children are located. Many of the kitchens are attached -- with public lavatories and sinks for students, if needed -- directly to schools. School social workers and teachers screen the children for eligibility. The volunteer staff includes more than 25 people from the community.
Feed the Hungry started in 1987, founded by concerned American and Canadian residents of San Miguel de Allende. St. Paul's parishioners Tony and Shirley Adlerbert took over the struggling food kitchen operation of St. Paul's Church in 1995 and turned Feed the Hungry into an independent not-for-profit group. Adlerbert currently chairs the board of trustees, while Dr. Mary Murrell, who began as a volunteer, now serves as executive director.
Before moving to San Miguel in 2001, Murrell was the founder of a management consulting firm in Philadelphia that worked with executives of Fortune 500 companies. She holds a bachelor's degree with honors from Duke University, master's degrees from SUNY-Albany and the University of Pennsylvania, and a doctorate from the Wharton School.
"The kitchen is important to the kids, obviously, but it also has a big impact on the school itself," said Murrell. "It improves their attention span, it improves attendance -- the teachers all tell us how much easier it is to teach now that they have a kitchen, so the children are not hungry.
"The kitchen also has an impact of raising the economic standard of the village because the kids are eating. And it gives them a role model about helping. In some communities, there's a lot of infighting that goes on. What we've seen happen is that after our kitchen has been there a while, people in the community begin to do things on their own initiative to help each other. There are also 47 women who have jobs, medical benefits, a retirement plan, and make their salary year round -- and they are very important people in their community."
Of every dollar raised, only seven cents goes for Feed the Hungry administration, leaving 93 cents to feed the children, one of the highest ratios of more than 3,000 charities measured by an independent U.S. research firm. Over the past decade, prudent nutrition management and strict inventory controls have reduced Feed the Hungry per-meal costs by half: to 19 cents from 38 cents.
A long part of the drive to some of the kitchens is over poor unpaved roads. Children walk from surrounding villages and ranchos. Feed the Hungry has 21 drivers delivering food to 25 kitchens, and approximately 15 volunteer substitute drivers ready to replace any driver. Volunteers also take the children to local clinics when medical care is needed.
"We'd like to do more. We figure there are 200 communities just in the greater San Miguel area that need the kitchens, and we only have 25 now," said Murrell. "So we're not going to run out of opportunities to do this any time soon."
The current annual cost to adopt a kitchen is US$7,500, which pays for food for 100 or more children, utilities (gas for cooking and water delivery in some locations) and salaries for the cooks.
If you are interested in learning more about adopting a kitchen, send an email to contact@feedthehungrysma.org, or visit the website at http://www.feedthehungrysma.org/index.htm. Feed the Hungry encourages kitchen adoptions by individuals, organizations, and businesses as well as groups of individuals. All donations are tax deductible in the U.S. and México. Dollar checks make payable to Feed the Hungry; peso checks make payable to Unidos Somos Familia, A.C.
From the US or Canada, mail to:
PMB 636
220 N Zapata Hwy #11
Laredo, TX 78043-4464 USA
From within México:
Feed the Hungry San Miguel de Allende
Aldama No. 3
San Miguel de Allende,
Gto. 37700, México
