30 days on $30 of food

Friday, June 30, 2017

Day 30: A bitter-sweet finish line

Tonight marks the end of my challenge. But for millions, it goes on.

It's bitter sweet.

On the one hand I'm happy that we raised $1,462 in new monthly donations through the "heart-chart" and that when we annualize these, they will equal $17,376/year. As discussed in my previous blog entries, thanks to purchaing power parity on most staple ingredients, combined with the fresh produce we grow on our farms and in our gardening projects, this funding will provide approximately 52,000 nutritious fresh-cooked meals for hungry orphans, child labor victims, and girls in recovery from human trafficking who are under our care. Happy about this, and in wonder of how it's even possible? Yes. No doubt.

However, I'm sad that I missed my goal by so far. I was trying to reach $2,753 in new monthly support that our programs desperately need. So we missed it by $1,291/mo, or in our "Monthly Donor Heart-Chart" lingo, we missed it by only the next 16 open hearts on the chart. Yet 34 hearts were in fact filled during the challenge, and for that I am extremely grateful.

It does sadden and confuse me why we, along with other worthy charities, struggle so much to find adequate funding to keep our programs running. Even this month I'm short of our target just to meet our basic bare-bones minimum operating budget, and at our recent giving levels I will soon be faced with the morbid responsibility of choosing which programs to cut, which means children will go away hungry and without the security and education we provide them.

I dedicate day 30 to those who have no day 31, and who often miss meals or get by on just one meal a day. To mothers who have to listen to their children cry because of hunger, and for all the orphans who have no mothers to cry to when they're hungry.

Sorry for such a downer final post, but this is where I am. I do hope it will get better, and that in the days and months ahead the heart-chart will slowly be filled up with more and more love. Thank you for following along, and thank you to all who stood up and took action to help me reach my charitable goal, even when you perhaps felt like your small contribution wouldn't make a difference. That's courage, that's faith, that's love.

Thank you. Good night.

On to how I was able to get by on just $1 worth of food today. Click or tap on image to enlarge...

Breakfast. ▼

Lunch. ▼

My friend Anita, chef and owner of Pondicheri, was kind enough to prepare my 89th meal of the challenge, using about 33 cents worth of ingredients: lentils, rice, carrots, a few peanuts, and an egg. Amaaaazing! Thank you, Anita!

Final "Meal"▼

Dedicated to all those who miss meals not for dieting, fasting, or traveling, but because they simply cannot afford to eat. I stand with you tonight.

Thursday, June 29, 2017

Day 29: Serious questions

I've had to ask myself the difficult question, why should I stop after day 30? Ok, aside from the fact that I'm losing weight at an unhealthy pace, why shouldn't we all be living more simply if others are hungry? I mean, really, that's a tough question, as my stats tell me that ~95% of my readers are in the developed world, and we live in lands of abundance. I could do a separate challenge living on $0 for 30 days, and demonstrate to you how I could live off of samples, freebies, and my kids' leftovers. Seriously. It could be done.

I don't know. I mean, honestly, there is a part of me that wants to extend the challenge, especially if I don't reach my goal. We are getting closer, and miracles are possible, but it will certainly take a miracle to fill the next 17 hearts in one day. This very difficult question is bouncing around in my head tonight: if my voluntary poverty is bringing awareness to the plight of those who go hungry, AND actually putting food on their plates, how can I stop? How would you answer this question, if you were in my shoes?

And, in general, I'm plagued by a question: how do we all deal with this, on a daily basis? Knowing that there are children out there— orphans, child labor victims, and recovering slaves who are struggling, while we go on with our lives almost as if they're not there. Yet, we know, that they're our neighbors on this tiny planet. So, I just don't know what to do.

And to my Christian brothers and sisters, and to Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Hare Krishna, Buddhists and other people of faith, I ask: why do we put more money into our churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, and ashrams than we do into helping these who have no hope and go hungry? At what point did one of the basic tenets of so many of the world's faiths turn from alms for the poor into alms for our places of worship? Serious question.

Again, for my Christian brothers and sisters, we know that there is a basis in our scriptures for taking a weekly offering in the church gathering. It is found in Paul's second letter to the church at Corinth, chapter 16, verses 1-4, and in other references in Paul's letters to the churches. If you read the passages, you will learn that Paul was not instructing the church to take a weekly collection to benefit church building projects, but for their fellow brothers and sisters back in Jerusalem, where their was a famine and they were suffering from hunger. Thus, the main beneficiaries of a weekly offering as directed in the Christian scriptures are to be, you guessed it, the poor—not a cathedral or fancy church building project—but for the hungry.

So as I wrap up my challenge here and grapple with these difficult questions, I would implore you to do the same, and also ask your pastor, priest, imam, rabi, guru, or other leader in your faith, what are we doing to help the poor?

Ok, one other thing and I'll get off my preachy soap box, but this is kind of huge for my Christian brothers and sisters unaware here: Remember when the apostles gave their blessing to Paul and Barnabas? I'm talking about the apostles, those guys who walked with Jesus for three years.

In Paul's letter to the church at Galatia, second chapter, verses 1-10, he recounts this scene. As the apostles James, Peter, and John give Paul the "right hand of fellowship," blessing his calling, they give him one request. What, of all the things, could these three pillars of our faith be asking Paul to not forget?

Maybe... "Oh, Paul, we bless you, but please just remember to teach new followers of Jesus to build big shiny churches," or "Paul, you're cool, we bless you in your work, but just make sure of this one thing: keep the believers inside of buildings so they can meet in security and comfort and encourage each another." No. Are you ready for this? The one thing they asked of Paul is that that he remember the poor. And what was Paul's response? "Oh, hmmm, I never thought of that, thanks for the instruction, I will be sure to remember that, apostles of our Lord." No. Paul, automatically replied to them, "This is the one thing I was eager to do!"

Ok, rant over. Just had to get that out there for the record, and for awareness. The original intention of the Christian faith, was that the primary pooling of financial resources should go to assist the poor and hungry.

I'm super happy to report that today we have filled two more hearts toward my goal of 50 "monthly hearts" on the "heart-chart" today! And we only lack $14/mo to fill the $57/mo heart! This puts our heart-chart looking really full tonight! We are making progress!

And tonight I dedicate the next to last day of my challenge to the people of one of my favorite places on the planet, a small Ugandan village near the Kenyan border and the shores of Lake Victoria called Mairinya. They have next to nothing, and have recently been struggling with a food crisis due to severe drought, yet they are resourceful and know how to smile even in the midst of adversity. Peace Gospel operates a humble primary school in this village that serves as the only source of education for the children of the village. Thanks to the effects of the "heart-chart" we are able to serve the 250 children of the school two fresh-cooked meals every school day. These are my photos of the people I've been blessed to meet in this village.

And some scenes from the school...

Charitable goal explanation. For those of you just tuning in, I'll recap what I'm trying to achieve with the "Monthly Donor Heart-Chart" and my goal of finding 50 new sponsors for these "hearts" which I like to think of as representing lives being transformed and, ultimately, saved.

Why am I seeking monthly donors? The orphan care, child labor response, and human trafficking response programs we've pioneered at Peace Gospel and She Has Hope— while sustained in part by small business enterprise— need charitable support to be fully sustained. The budgets of these programs have fixed, monthly expenses. Thus, while one-time donations are deeply appreciated, it's the monthly donations that give us something to count on and plan with. Therefore, long-term, they're the most powerful.

If you're willing to make a small monthly sacrifice of any amount to help ensure that the following merciful actions are fully funded each month, I would be grateful for your partnership with me in this effort. With your help, our monthly budget enables us to…

Provide resident care for 290 orphans in 11 homes in Asia and Africa
Operate 4 schools and 4 after-school care programs reaching over 1000 children
Serve approx. 50,000 fresh meals to children in our programs
Train 100s of girls how to avoid the dangers of human trafficking
House, rehabilitate and empower 20 girls recovering from human trafficking

On to what I was able to create with just $1 worth of food today.

Click or tap on image to enlarge...

Breakfast. ▼

Lunch. ▼

Dinner. ▼

Take Action!

1) Please consider helping me reach my goal to find 50 new "Sustainers"— donors willing to give a small amount each month toward our work helping vulnerable children and trafficking survivors. Learn more and sign up here!

2) Please visit my unofficial sponsor, Amazon.com through this link. 7% of your purchases made through the link are given to the work of Peace Gospel's programs helping orphans, at-risk children of the slums, and human trafficking survivors.

3) If you're compelled by my effort here, please share it with friends. One of the main goals is awareness. So if you can help with that, huge.

4) Leave me feedback. Please comment on this post, especially if you have any ideas about what I should try to cook with these ingredients I have available. I love hearing from you! It really helps!

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

Day 28: Travel day

I was on the road a lot today between Bee Cave to Austin and Austin to Houston, and got home late, however I will share a few thoughts. By the way, I'm thankful for my remaining raisin ration which made a nice road trip snack!

Please consider helping me reach my charitable goal, with only 2 days left to go! I'm trying to fill 50 new "monthly hearts" on the "heart chart" by the end of the month. So far I'm at 31 hearts, with only 19 to go. And we are within just $8/mo of filling the $55/mo heart! So close! In my last several blog posts, I've worked hard to explain how even a small recurring donation can make a very significant impact in the life of a child struggling with the effects of extreme poverty.

I feel strongly that the world is as broken as it is because of a lack of belief in what a small donation—or, for that matter, a smile, a single volunteer hour, a simple encouraging word— can do. I can only imagine how many billions of dollars are withheld each year because of this unfortunate feeling that a small contribution just won't really make a difference, so we don't bother. I have dedicated my life to making sure that people are aware of this sad reality, to motivate you to overcome that feeling, and actually stand up and do something, no matter how "small" it may seem to you. It is far, far better—exponentially better— than doing nothing.

I'll share with you a picture of that reality. This is just one of the nearly 500,000 fresh-cooked meals we served last year. Cost? Maybe 25 cents. Now after seeing this, no one can tell you that a small donation won't make a difference. The donation that enabled this act of compassion certainly made a difference for her and her mom that day. (Photo: Cebu, Philippines 'Children's Hope Center' outreach).

I look forward to picking back up on the blog tomorrow night and for the final night's recap. Thank you so much for sticking with me, and for all of your support. The blog traffic has been especially encouraging. It keeps on growing! As awareness is one of the major goals of my challenge, I'm happy to see traffic upwards of 200 visitors a day lately. Here's where we remain on the heart-chart for tonight, although I'm happy to report that three very generous new donors used the "heart of gold" to register smaller monthly gifts! It all adds up! We can do this!

Provide resident care for 290 orphans in 11 homes in Asia and Africa
Operate 4 schools and 4 after-school care programs reaching over 1000 children
Serve approx. 50,000 fresh meals to children in our programs
Train 100s of girls how to avoid the dangers of human trafficking
House, rehabilitate and empower 20 girls recovering from human trafficking

On to what I was able to create with just $1 worth of food today. I was on the run, so it was just two tacos shared between breakfast and lunch, and then raisins as a snack on the road, and soup for dinner. Making it work!

Click or tap on image to enlarge...

Breakfast. ▼

Lunch. ▼

Dinner. ▼

Take Action!

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Day 27: A special appeal

Today was only my second day on the road, but it definitely felt like my third, at least! There's something about having to travel and be "on the go" that adds an entirely different dimension to the challenge! But I'm so proud of my son for being on top of his registration and orientation at the University of Texas, that it really makes all of these "challenges" pale in comparison. What an exciting time, and I love this part of Texas. Definitely looking forward to returning to Austin when I can actually EAT, because some of my favorite cafes are here! But of course, I know you didn't come to my blog to hear small talk.

You probably want to know how in the world I'm cooking up three decent meals a day for less than a buck, and how I'm managing on day 27. Well, the meals are actually quite tasty; I've figured out some seasoning tricks that make all the difference. It's just that they're not enough to really sustain you for any long period of time, and I'm no nutritionist but I would imagine they lack some key nutritional values. In short, manageable short-term, but not something you'd want to endure long-term: I've already lost over 10 pounds.

With just three days and nine meals remaining, and a quick review of my rations, I know that I'll make it at this point. I've given it everything I've got, and still holding out hope that somehow, we can reach the goal of 50 hearts filled for the charitable goal. Great news today! Someone stepped up to sponsor the $53/mo heart, bringing my total to 31 "monthly hearts" sponsored, leaving just 19 to go before the end of the challenge!

I want to spend the rest of this blog post making a special appeal to two types of prospective donors. If you've been one of the several hundreds of blog readers watching from the sidelines, not sure if you should take action or not, then the following is a sincere challenge I would consider you very brave and honorable to consider.

Ok, so you're still with me. Amazing, thank you! Just bear with my train of thought here. So the next 19 hearts on the "Monthly Donor Heart-Chart" when added together, will represent $1,272 in monthly recurring support for our programs. That's the power of this "sum of consecutive integers" math!

It's also the exponential power of community, collectively pooling our "spare change" to make lasting change. If we're able to get these next 19 hearts sponsored, this will represent about 3,800 fresh-cooked meals served to orphans, child labor victims, and trafficking survivors in our programs each month, or over 45,000 meals annually.

If we count 3 meals a day as ending hunger for one child, then this means that if we can fill these next 19 hearts, we can end hunger for 42 children, seven days a week, 365 days of the year.

As already established in the past few blog posts, we can take the evidence of my own $1/day food challenge here, research on "purchasing power parity" of food staples across the world, coupled with the fact that our organization grows much of our own produce overseas, and come up with a rough metric that tells us $1 equals approximately three nutritious meals per day when invested in our programs. Not Kirby's $1/day type meals. Imagine my meals combined with fresh ingredients from a copious gardening or farmland project!

Thus you may be someone who can only afford $5/month to contribute toward our programs. I can understand, if you hadn't read this blog before, and you weren't aware of what $5/month can actually achieve, that you would feel indifferent toward making such a contribution—why bother? I get it.

But now, equipped with this knowledge, you should be aware that a $5/mo donation actually represents 15 fresh-cooked, delicious, nutritious meals for a hungry, at-risk child. So your $5 becomes five days of meals. And that makes a real difference.

Let's say you're a second type of donor who might be sitting on the fence, thinking, what good is my contribution really going to do? You look at all the huge charities raising tens of millions of dollars, and the $500/mo contribution you're considering committing to just seems like a drop in the bucket.

But in our work, thanks to the multiplying effects of our farmland and gardening projects, and our low administrative overhead (we only have two western staff overseeing 16 programs in 5 nations, the rest consist of local leadership living off of the profits of their own businesses), your contribution makes a significant impact with exponential results. Please consider filling up more than one of our remaining 19 hearts before my goal deadline. Your consistent and generous giving will make a life-changing impact for dozens of children, every single month.

So you're still skeptical. Why so much talk about meals? Why should we target ending hunger as a charitable cause to promote? Aren't the poor actually happy because of their simple lifestyle? It's actually a great question. But the point is, without nutrition, children are not able to progress at key developmental stages, and students are not able to focus on their studies while distracted by the nagging pangs of hunger—pangs I can fully relate to this month. While you can work to diminish the distraction, there is always an undercurrent you're working against with hunger. For children, it's worse, as they're not as disciplined to overcome such physical challenges. This is a fundamental problem on many levels.

Ok, so now once again, after a long day, it is late and I should conclude quickly! I will leave you with a few photos of those who benefit from the "heart-chart" and its consistent charitable impact, thanks to your generosity in being a part of this dream to change the world through sustaining empowerment...

Provide resident care for 290 orphans in 11 homes in Asia and Africa
Operate 4 schools and 4 after-school care programs reaching over 1000 children
Serve approx. 50,000 fresh meals to children in our programs
Train 100s of girls how to avoid the dangers of human trafficking
House, rehabilitate and empower 20 girls recovering from human trafficking

On to what I was able to create with just $1 worth of food today. Again today, being in a rush in the morning and having only a small to-go meal for lunch, left me with some extra rations for a very delicious potato tortilla soup. I was grateful again for the amazing time with my dear friends Joe and Hollis who have been gracious enough to allow me to invade their home (and kitchen) for three nights!

Click or tap on image to enlarge...

Breakfast. ▼

Lunch. ▼

Dinner. ▼

Take Action!