My new job!
and a new opportunity
I am both humbled and honoured to be starting a new job today as a Supporter Engagement Officer for the wonderful Mary’s Meals. I’ll be based in the South-East of England, working with supporters to raise funds for, and awareness of, the work of Mary’s Meals, so do please let me know if you would like a talk in your church, school, organisation or business.
We also have a fantastic network of volunteers, so please get in contact if you’d like to get involved in that way. I will no doubt post more about volunteering on another occasion. (And don’t miss the end of this post, where I shall suggest some other ways in which anyone who is interested can help.)
But what is Mary’s Meals?
It is a global movement that sets up school feeding programmes in some of the world’s poorest communities, where poverty and hunger prevent children from gaining an education.
We provide one daily meal in a place of learning to bring children from vulnerable communities into the classroom, where they receive an education that can, in the future, be their ladder out of poverty.
The Mary’s Meals campaign was born in 2002 when Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow visited Malawi during a famine and met a mother dying from AIDS. When Magnus asked her eldest son Edward what his dreams were in life, he replied simply: “I want to have enough food to eat and to be able to go to school one day.”
That moment was a key part of the inspiration which led to the founding of Mary’s Meals, which began by feeding around 200 children in Malawi in 2002. Today we serve more than 2.4 million children every school day in the following countries: Benin, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Kenya, Lebanon, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Myanmar, Niger, South Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Yemen.
If you haven’t come across Mary’s Meals before - and even if you have - please have a look at our inspiring videos and books. They really might change your life!
Love Reaches Everywhere is a truly wonderful film, funny at times, deeply moving at others.
I also love Generation Hope. In fact, one of the things I really love about Mary’s Meals is the sense of hope that pervades everything we do. It is easy to get weighed down by the problems of the world, but Magnus hit on a simple idea that really does work. That’s why we’re a hope-filled organisation.
And then there’s Child 31, which is an amazing film. It makes me cry every time I watch it, so I thought I’d better let you know in advance in case it hits you in the same way.
If you’re more of a reader than a viewer, I can also highly recommend Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow’s book which tells the story of Mary’s Meals: The Shed that Fed 2 Million Children.
As you can see, I’m very excited to be starting this new job and have been thinking a lot about ways in which we can raise more money to help feed the next child. It costs just 10p for one meal and just £19.15 to provide a child with Mary’s Meals for a whole school year. It costs so little to have such a massive impact on a child’s life.
So I’m going to offer a paid service for this Substack (while retaining the free version). I can’t promise any more content (though I will see what I can manage to do, especially when I’ve got a new book coming out) but I will promise to donate all the money from any subscriptions to this Substack straight to Mary’s Meals.
The cheapest subscriptions that Substack offers are £3.50 per month or £20 per year. I would have set it up at £19.15 otherwise. But, as I say, all this is entirely optional and you’ll still be able to access all my posts without paying a penny.
If you’d rather give directly to Mary’s Meals (and I completely understand that), there’s a great opportunity to triple your first three payments until the end of May if you set up a regular gift. Have a look here for further details.
And lastly, but most importantly, please do pray for me as I start this new job and pray for the work of Mary’s Meals. Thank you!
