Two very important shipments went out from the MannaRelief warehouse last week. We provided nearly 850,000 servings of whole food nutrition to children in Mexico and South Africa.
The first shipment marked our second delivery of whole food nutrition to more than 5,000 kids in Mexico. In addition, two new organizations were included in this shipment; just over 300 additional children will now be receiving whole food nutrition for the first time! We are very excited to continue our partnership with Vamos México, and thrilled to partner with Ross MacDonald and the Murillo family for the first time.
The second shipment was sent to nearly 1,000 kids in South Africa. South Africa holds a very special place in the history of MannaRelief. In 2005, we took the first of four consecutive trips to South Africa. Each year we visited the same organizations-growing closer and closer to the Directors and the kids. The children were even beginning to recognize our faces each time we returned.
2008 held many changes for MannaRelief. Unfortunately, in the midst of one of the worst global recessions on record, one of those changes was a cut in funding. Like many nonprofit organizations, we were forced to put our work in South Africa on hold. However, our passion never let us forget the relationships that we built there and we looked forward to the day we would be able to pick up where we left off.
That day has come. Thanks to the large amount of support we’ve received through our Spare Change for Real Change campaign, we are now able to resume sending nutritional support to the children in South Africa. The Directors in South Africa are rejoicing and are very excited to be receiving this support once again. We cannot thank our supporters and donors enough that have helped make this possible.