Several times a day I deal with challenges surrounding food: what to eat for breakfast/lunch/dinner, what to fix the kids, what groceries need to be bought, etc. As I update our grocery list, I check the refrigerator and the pantry to see what needs to be replaced, while inventorying ingredients for our weekly meals. Regardless of how comprehensive the list, or how full the pantry is, almost every night without fail we have the same debate: what do you want for dinner?

Do we eat out, order pizza, or cook at home? For the most part, those are our biggest challenges. We’re so fortunate that we have the freedom and resources to choose what our next meal will be and where its coming from, and yet we all take it for granted. Its difficult to imagine not having the ability to buy or eat fresh vegetables. Families in Bolivia don’t have many choices when it comes to their meals.

In Bolivia, almost 80% of the population lives in poverty and food insecurity.

The World Food Programme‘s school meals are changing that as they work to feed school meals to 80,000 school-age children. Each morning the children at the Huarimarca School, walk to school and line up for a cup of api (a hot beverage made of purple maize flour and cinnamon) and bread for breakfast. The WFP provides breakfast and lunch with vegetables to school age children across Bolivia’s 52 most food-insecure municipalities.

It only costs $.25 to provide a nutritious school meal for a child. The World Food Programme is giving you a unique opportunity to get to know some of the kids they’re feeding at the Huarimarca School in Bolivia! You can send the children a message or ask them a question and you might be one of the lucky ones to get a personal response.

So, please take a minute out of your day to ask these children a question or send them an encouraging message.