Claire Hao

1-2-2013
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Feed My Starving Children
There are 24. Exactly 24 ribs on this dying girl. Each one is easy to count, easy to see.
Shes a skeleton with skin, about to leave this world after four years of pain. She will never have
a future, never go to school, get married, or have a family of her own. She is innocent, has done
nothing possibly to deserve this fate. It is not her who chose where to live, or controls the rain
and agricultural industry. Next to her, a woman, her mother, is sobbing silently, her body
shaking. Ever since the girl was born, she gave a cry for food, what her mother could not give to
her. All she could do was sit by, watching her little girl starve, and not be able to do anything
about it. The girl breathed her last breath, and closed her eyes. Her suffering was over. Maybe
where she was now, she was full of food and content. Possibly, in another time, another place,
she wouldve been a famous actress, or scientist, curing cancer, but in her poverty, all she can be
is dead.
Count to five. Drop the essay, and count to five. In those short five seconds, one child
somewhere around the world has died from lack of food. Hunger has been around ever since
humans have. But since then, we have made huge improvements in science and technology. Why
so are four million more people starving then? We can fly in the air, and communicate from
halfway around the globe, yet we still havent solved the most ancient problem of starvation. In
2012, about 15 million died from hunger. 15 million more will die by the end of this year. The
worst part is, dying of hunger isnt quick and easy, like a bullet would be. Hunger takes hold of
you easily, and unleashes its power slowly. Dying of hunger is painful, first taking over your
body, then taking over your mind, until all you can think about is the emptiness of your own
stomach. A child lives a life no human should ever experience. Food is a luxury, a privilege, not
a right. I believe the Boulan Park Fundraising Committee should donate to Feed My Starving
Children.
To us, hunger is probably a temporary feeling of emptiness that can be quickly satisfied
with food. Hunger is just going to the pantry and grabbing a bag of chip, or going to the dinner
table. We worry about homework, friends, and crushes, but where our next meal comes from is
already taken care of for us. In fact, the food we do get, we dont like. Think about it. What did
you have for lunch today? Did you like it and finish every bit of it? 146 million kids dont get a
choice. Oxford Dictionary defines hunger as the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of
food. Oxford describes what hunger is, but it doesnt show all the emotion and horror behind it.
For those hungry kids, its about skipping meals, eating whatever they can get their hands on,
watching their parents starve so they can eat. To them, hunger is the grief of a loved one dying,
living day by day aching for what is not theirs, a little boy who has known more suffering than a
forty years old man and was never given the chance to live, having strange diseases no one in
America has ever heard of. They dont know the big words that paint what hunger is, but they
know that the hollowness of their stomachs means they need food. Five million of these children
will not live to see their sixth birthday every year. Oxford does not tell us that one out of six
babies, or 17 million, are born underweight every year. It wont say that 28% of all kids in
developing countries are underweight and have had their growth stunted. Hunger kills more
people that AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. But hunger is different than those
sicknesses problems in that we have control and the solution should simple. All hunger wants is
food. There is plenty of food on this planet. In fact, there is enough for everyone to eat 5 pounds,
or 2,800 calories, a day, more than enough to stay healthy. So then, whats the problem?
Most of the food is produced in developed countries, which are typically farther away
from developing countries. The cost of transporting the food to developing countries is very
high. We could move food closer to developing countries, but the land is not always suitable for
farming. Even without this obstacle, hunger would still exist. Often, natural disasters cause
people to be homeless, food to be scattered, and hunger to start. In addition, droughts are one of
the most common causes of hunger. When the land close to them can no longer produce food,
the food available becomes more expensive. Furthermore, the horrors of war and the money
spent on it are a big cause of hunger. If we spent on hungry kids what we spend on one missile, it
could feed a school of hungry children for five years. Also, what the world spends in two days on
its military could save 100 million people dying from hunger and starvation. War tends to tear
apart the lives of people, making security and food harder to find. More than anything though,
poverty is what stimulates hunger the most. People are caught in a poverty trap, where the poor
are hungry and the hunger traps them in being poor. Getting out of this cycle is very difficult, so
usually hunger is passed down through generations. One generation after another, what couldve
been the next Einstein or Beethoven dies instead. Moreover, hunger is costly, not just in human
life, but in money terms. The direct costs of medical care due to hunger and malnutrition equal
about $30 billion every year and the indirect costs of lost productivity and income equal $500
billion to one trillion.
When I used to look at pictures of starving children, their big stomachs puzzled me. Why
would near death children have stomachs bigger than I do? The swollen stomachs are a result of
kwashiorkor, which happens from lack of protein. In addition to swollen stomachs, kwashiorkor
causes fatigue, skin color changes, smaller muscle mass, diarrhea, rashes, enlarged livers, and at
late stages, permanent mental, physical, and development changes. This is only one of the many
results of malnutrition, which causes a variety of health problems. Hungry children are sick more
often, and their body cannot fight back. Blood pressure may also drop. Fat, which insulates the
body and gives it energy, is missing, causing fatigue. Growth will also be stunted, so the child
will be shorter than usual. Iron deficiency, which results from the lack of iron, delays mental and
motor functions, causes fatigue, impairs memory, and decreases the ability to work. Rickets,
which occurs from the lack of vitamin D, causes soft and weak bones. A large gland may swell
in the neck, which results from lack of iodine and causes mental retardation, called goiter. Every
year, the lack of vitamin A causes 250,000 to 500,000 kids to go blind, and half of them die
within a year of losing their sight. About 195 million kids suffered from stunting in 2009, 90% of
them from Asia and Africa. Wasting, the loss of body mass or size, usually muscle mass, effects
26 million kids. Of course, the lack of calories causes a thin, frail appearance, the most common
idol of child hunger. Hunger is cruel; it doesnt let its victims die easily. Instead, it tortures them,
throwing many diseases at them. Who are we to let them suffer any longer?
Feed My Starving Children began with a broken heart. On a mission trip to the Honduras,
Minnesota businessman Richard Proudfit saw a mother take her dying, hungry child to the
doctor, and the doctor giving the child back after shaking his head no. He wanted to start a
charity that would truly help end the misery he had seen there. Founded in 1987, Feed My
Starving Children (FMSC) has been keeping kids alive for 25 years. In these years, FMSC has
packed more than 600 million meals, therefore feeding over 600 million malnourished children.
Moreover, they have maintained a four-star rating on Charity Navigator for seven consecutive
years, with a score of 69.14 out of 70. Further, FMSC is among USAs top 2% most trustworthy
charities. Starting out in Coon Rapids, MN, FMSC now has seven locations, three in Minnesota,
three in Illinois, and one in Arizona. Since 1994, they have 659,653 more volunteers, 161 more
employees, 179 more partners, and $38,545,000 annually to spend. 92% of total donations go to
feed hungry children, while 8% is used for fundraising and administration. Through these hard
years, they are getting closer to their vision of eliminating starvation in children.
With so many starving children out there, how does one possibly begin and feed the
world? When a child is swinging between the lines of life and death, what kind of food will save
him? This is what Richard Proudfit asked as he tried to develop a food formula to mass feed the
world. Trying out so many formulas, none of them worked. In 1993, the breakthrough came.
Proudfit worked with Cargill and General Mills, creating Manna Rice, named Manna after the
food God provided to his people in times of need. Manna Rice contains rice, a universally
accepted grain, soy for protein, dehydrated vegetables, and a mixture of 20 vitamins and
minerals thats been added to a chicken flavoring. A single bag of Manna Rice feeds six children,
for only $1.32. Throughout the years, more formulas have been created for different purposes.
After hearing that diarrhea is the number one cause of death in malnourished kids, FMSC created
Manna Pack Potato-D, the first and so far only food in the relief world designed to help people
recover from diarrhea. Each bag of Potato-D includes 12 half-cup servings, which mixed simply
with water will create a lifesaving mixture. For kids too young to consume either mixture, FMSC
created Potato-W. This is very much like Potato-D, except for a different mix of vitamins and
minerals specifically to help infants grow, and more fat, which is necessary for development.
Potato-W, made for kids 7-12 month old children, is a bridge to eating solid food. FMSC buys all
raw ingredients, which is one of their largest expenses. Taking science and technology, they have
developed food most helpful to malnourished kids. For just 22 cents, one child will be full
tonight.
A man was out walking, and somewhere in the distance, he heard crying. After searching
for a while, he found a baby, Moses, lying at the bottom of an outhouse. Using rope, the man
saved Moses, who was suffering from dehydration and malnourishment. Now, thanks to FMSC,
he has been given a second chance at life.




Another case, Omar, was hanging on the verge of death. At the age of eight, Omar only
weighed 19 pounds. Six months later, after eating FMSCs food, Omar weighed a miraculous 73
pounds.




In conclusion, I believe the Boulan Park Middle School Fundraising Committee should
donate to Feed My Starving Children. Not only do millions of kids desperately need food, Feed
My Starving Children has proven again and again that its methods and food can really help a
child in need. For less than a quarter, we can bring hope into another childs life. Together, we
can solve the age old problem of hunger, and show him that while pain and suffering are strong,
love and teamwork are stronger. Starting with food, we can let a child live again, and create a
better life for himself. By letting another child live, we can cheat death of another victim. Its not
fair that these kids only want a full belly, while we stuff our faces until we can hold no more.
And if the life is not fair, is it just for cute little kids, faces full of hope, blameless, to go through
this nightmare? No one should feel the agony of starving to death, not even criminals, and
especially not children. A penny at a time, we can give kids the chance to be alive again.
Question is, will you be respond to these kids desperate pleas?