Project Results — Partnerships

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) has been a longtime partner with Food For The Poor in projects that provide food and promote agricultural education for the destitute of the Caribbean and Latin America.

In Zacapa, Guatemala, one such program offers desperately needed food to poor families living in this remote mountain region. Because of severe droughts that plague the country, the mountain region’s families cannot rely solely on their own farming for sustenance. The area’s indigenous Mayan inhabitants travel down the mountains for hours by mule in order to receive a monthly distribution of food items that include powdered soy, beans, corn, rice, oil, milk and wheat.

“We live up there because we grew up there,” said Rita Aldana, an impoverished mother who receives the food on behalf of her family. “We have nowhere else to go.”

This is why our distribution and feeding centers are so vital to hungry families. Guatemala has the highest rate of child malnutrition in our hemisphere. By the end of the day that we spoke with Rita, more than 100,000 pounds of food had made its way up Zacapa’s mountainside and into the hands of hungry families. Together, with our valued partners and people like you, Food For The Poor will continue to battle the hunger that threatens the lives of destitute children.