But when schools closed in the middle of Covid-19, MacFarlane-Barrow and his team lost direct access to students when they needed them most.
That did not stop the organization from ensuring that no child goes hungry. Very quickly, Mary’s Meals began working with local governments and community leaders to find new ways to distribute food to children.
“Sometimes there is a very good reason to suspend schools; there can never be a good reason to suspend feeding children,” said MacFarlane-Barrow, a CNN 2010 hero.
Since April, community leaders and parents and guardians have been able to travel to schools and collect food from Mary’s Meals to take home and cook for their families.
The organization is feeding children in more than 15 countries, including Malawi, Ethiopia, India, Haiti, and Kenya, reaching as many students as before Covid-19.
“If someone asked me if that would be possible even two months ago, I would not have believed it,” said MacFarlane-Barrow. “But here we are at that point, having found a way to fulfill our promise.”
Mary’s Meals volunteers distribute food at each site, and all collection is done using social distancing protocols.
“Much of what we do depends on the kindness of the people, on all those little acts of love,” said MacFarlane-Barrow. “Whether it’s volunteers from the developing world who come to collect food every day, or people who donate so that we can keep the child fed every day. I thank, with all my heart, every person who is doing this. days. “
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