Make May Matter - Feed The Hungry

This May you can help change the lives of children around the world by raising money through taking part in Make May Matter.

Challenge yourself to take part in the Meagre Meals Challenge and live for 5 days on the kind of food many of the children we encounter have to eat daily. Ask your friends to join you in the challenge, or ask them to sponsor you and support our work through their generosity. If you can’t take part for the 5 days, why not host a Meagre Meal and invite friends over for dinner?

Or is there something you have always wanted to do, but never found the right motivation? Run 10km? Cycle across the country? Jump from a plane? Take up our Personal Challenge and see how many lives you can change.

Do you enjoy baking? Take part in Bake May Matter and host a bake sale during the month. You can host it at home, church, social group, school, and in many more places.

Are you involved with planning activities for a school or preschool? Or fancy getting together with friends and planning a walk to raise money as part of How far can you walk? Choose your distance and make a difference!

Check out our list below for ideas of what you can do to make a difference — contact our office and let us know what you’re doing so we can support you!

Meagre Meal Challenge

Can you survive the Meagre Meal challenge? A simple challenge but difficult to achieve! Eat only rice meals for 5 days and experience what it’s like to live off this basic food. For the 5 days you have:

200g of porridge oats
450g rice
200g red lentils or 125g red lentils and 75g of soy bean flakes (available in health food shops and some supermarkets)
2 tomatoes
1 onion
1 sweet potato
1 small cabbage
1 small kale bunch

You also have unlimited of the following herbs – (dried or fresh) chillies, basil, mint, lemongrass, rosemary, chives.

You can have unlimited water throughout the week.

How you choose to convert this in to meals for the week is up to you. But there are no extras to add in at the end of the week if you run out. These are all your supplies. I know it may not seem like much, but for many of the children Feed the Hungry support they would love to have this to eat each week.

Join together with friends or family and take on the challenge together!

How Far Can You Walk?

Many of the children we work with in Africa walk miles everyday to get to school. Why not follow in their footsteps and do a sponsored walk. Encourage your local school to take part or get together a group of friends to hike a local trail.

Walk 1km and you will be like Insigni who fetches water from the nearest well.
Walk 3km and you will be like the children who attend Hapwaya Primary School in Zambia and have to walk that far every day to get to school.
Walk 5km and you will be like a Romanian family who share a pair of shoes and take it in turns to collect food.

Ask your sponsors to give $6 each and you can walk knowing that each donation feeds one child for a whole month.

Take on a personal challenge

Have you always wanted to skydive? Run a Half Marathon? Take part in a 24hr singathon? Do you have a reputation for being an amazing cook – could you challenge yourself to cook your biggest chilli? Have you wanted to get on your bike and travel the length of Australia?

Why not take up this challenge now and combine it with the opportunity to change lives of children around the world by raising money for Feed the Hungry?

Be as creative as you want and raise money for widows like Elizabeth who has 8 children to feed and just a small garden plot in which to grow crops to raise an income. The money you raise could help her farm her small plot of land more efficiently, plus see her children attend primary school and receive a daily meal.

Last year, Gwyn, Director of FTH UK took part in a bike-a-thon during Make May Matter. He broadcast it live on his Facebook and raised $127.83 in one hour! Hundreds of people watched as he explained more about Feed the Hungry and how they could donate.

How could you use your social media pages to raise awareness and support for Feed the Hungry during Make May Matter? Get to thinking!!

The Ideas are endless!

Cake sale: Why not make some cakes and get your friends and family involved and sell them at church, a fun fair, school fate or at work. Yum!
Tea and Coffee Morning: Set up your own open house cafe or run a special morning at a location central to your town or village. Get time together and raise money!
Sponsored Silence: give up speaking for a day or three? Will people miss you or be relieved?
Social Media / Talk: Why not post about FTH on your social media pages, or give a talk at lunchtime to your colleagues. Awareness is essential, and you’ll be surprised how much you can raise when people see your passion!
Raffle: Gather some prizes, perhaps get some local business involved, and raffle them off at your event?

As you can see, there are many ways that you and your friends and family can get involved in helping to feed the hungry! We look forward to hearing about your way — Get out there and make a difference!

If you can’t do any of the above, then don’t forget that you can raise awareness by telling your friends, family and colleagues that just $6 feeds a child for a whole month!