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Food bloggers create a recipe for philanthropy in South Africa

In an effort to help feed South African school children, food bloggers are partnering with The Lunchbox Fund to help provide a daily meal to underserved schoolchildren whose needs aren't completely met by the South African government.

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Denis Farrell/AP/File
Children play with old car tires in a street in the Katlehong Township, south east of Johannesburg, South Africa, Friday, Feb. 14, 2014. More than 100 food bloggers around the world launched a fundraising campaign this week to support The Lunchbox Fund, which helps provide meals to underserved schoolchildren in South Africa.
  • By Nicole Gulotta Guest blogger

For many children in South Africa, a daily meal served in school is the only meal they will eat all day. In a country where 65 percent of children live in poverty and approximately 1.9 million of the country’s orphaned children have lost one or both parents as a result of HIV and AIDS, a generation of children have become heads of household, or are forced to strain modest government stipends allotted to their grandparents. At the end of the day, there are few resources left for food.

When children are hungry, they can’t concentrate and their potential is stifled. Providing a daily meal at school encourages attendance and helps ensure that each child reaches their potential. The Lunchbox Fund, a South African NGO that fosters education through nutrition by providing a daily, nourishing meal to underserved schoolchildren, has stepped in to fill the gap left by the South African government, which can only provide school meals to 8 million of the country’s 12 million school-age children.

By partnering with local organizations, recruiting grandmothers to cook and deliver meals, and monitoring attendance, The Lunchbox Fund is systematically working to help a generation of children lift themselves out of poverty and become nourished body and mind.

In an effort to feed 100 schoolchildren a daily meal for one year, more than 100 food bloggers around the world launched a fundraising campaign today to support The Lunchbox Fund, and are aiming to raise US$5,000 to accomplish this.

Feed South Africa was organized by The Giving Table, a website that mobilizes food bloggers to change the food system. Through social action campaigns that fit seamlessly into bloggers’ existing content strategies, The Giving Table achieves collective impact by leveraging shared networks and the power of crowdsourced activism. Bloggers constantly tell stories, develop recipes, and take photos for their websites, but today, they’re serving up a call to action that requests donations of just USFeed South Africa: Food Bloggers Create Recipe for Philanthropy$10.

When we come together for one cause and each contribute what we can, amazing things can happen. To donate to this campaign, visit The Giving Table’s fundraising page.

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