Some food for thought..

Did you know that:

• about 24,000 people die every day from hunger or hunger-related causes? This is down from 35,000 ten years ago, and 41,000 twenty years ago. Three-fourths of the deaths are children under the age of five.
• in 1999, 10% of children in developing countries died before the age of five?! This was down from 28% fifty years ago.
• famine and wars cause just 10% of hunger deaths, although these tend to be the ones you hear about most often? The majority of hunger deaths are caused by chronic malnutrition. Families simply cannot get enough to eat. This in turn is caused by extreme poverty.
• besides death, chronic malnutrition also causes impaired vision, listlessness, stunted growth and greatly increased susceptibility to disease? Severely malnourished people are unable to function at even a basic level.
• in 1999, it was estimated that one billion people in the world suffered from hunger and malnutrition, about 100 times as many as those who actually died from it each year?
• according to the 1996 World Food Summit, 840 million people live in the condition of chronic, persistent hunger, one-seventh of our human family? The vast majority of hungry people live in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa.

Bet you didn’t.

Often it takes just a few simple resources for impoverished people to be able to grow enough food to become self-sufficient. These resources include quality seeds, appropriate tools and access to water. Small improvements in farming techniques and food storage methods are also helpful.

How can you help?

With a simple, daily click of the yellow “Help Feed The Hungry” button at The Hunger Site, you can help provide food to those in need. You pay nothing. Food is paid for by the site’s sponsors and distributed by Mercy Corps worldwide and by America’s Second Harvest to food banks throughout the United States.

You can help even more!

In addition to clicking the yellow “Help Feed The Hungry” button, you can help even more by shopping in The Hunger Site store. With each item purchased, you generate funds for the hungry. The store offers a wide array of items to show your support as well as fair-traded and handcrafted items from around the world that help families and communities pull themselves out of the poverty and hunger cycle. And they ship internationally too! :)

But if I don’t have a credit card?

Many hunger experts believe that ultimately the best way to reduce hunger is through education. Educated people are best able to break out of the cycle of poverty that causes hunger.

Come on, every click counts in the life of a hungry person.