“We Are All Getting Smaller”
Students at Mackinnon Road Girls School welcome bags of beans and rice
When our October team interviewed Kenya Keys students last month, a high school student from Mackinnon Road Girls boarding school mentioned that the meals at school were shrinking. “We are all getting smaller,” she said of herself and her fellow students.
Schools have typically been a refuge from hunger for needy students.
The parents who send in money for food provide for the students whose families can’t pay. But, years of drought means many families cannot send money, and food portions at schools are being cut, and cut again. It is especially unfortunate for high school Seniors who are, this week, beginning the grueling 3-week-long national exams upon which their college hopes and futures hang.
The Kenya Keys team delivered a month of food to 4 schools and an orphanage
Director Joseph Mwengea found it wasn’t just Mackinnon Girls School. All the local schools are currently struggling to pay for food. Because of generous donations from Kenya Keys supporters, Joseph could act quickly. He purchased a truckfull of beans, rice, maize, and oil and began to visit local schools.
“The situation was very bad,” Joseph reported.
At Taru Girls, 8 girls were splitting a small loaf - the equivalent of a slice of bread as a meal. Ugalani High hardly had food for the next two days. Mackinnon Road Girls was “also very bad”, but “the situation was even worse” at Mackinnon Road Orphanage. Joseph described a pantry with “maybe half a bag of rice left” for the children.
Bag after bag of rice, beans, and maize were stacked in the kitchens of 4 high schools and the orphanage as students looked on, full of smiles. Almost 600 students will have 2 meals a day for the next month. At least their stomachs will not growl during the biggest test of their lives.
There will be food for minds at work.
We cannot thank you enough for this miracle you helped make happen. It is both humbling and terrifying to think what would happen without the compassion of people like you. It’s true that there are many problems we cannot solve. But, there are some we can. It’s just a month, but it’s a critical month. It’s just a test, but it’s the test that opens the door to college and a career. It’s just a little, but a little can make a big difference. With your help, that’s what we’ll be, the little that makes a big difference for students.