A group of volunteers from Dublin have undertaken an epic challenge to walk from Dublin to Knock, in Co. Mayo, for international school feeding charity Mary’s Meals. The group are taking part in the organisation’s annual fundraiser, the ‘Step by Step to Feed the Next Child’ walk, which is celebrating its 10 anniversary this year!
Mary’s Meals is an international organisation providing a daily meal in a place of education for children in some of the poorest communities in the world. They are currently feeding more than 2 million children, in 20 countries, across Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean. While just €18.30 feeds a child for an entire school year, those daily meals enable children to come to the classroom and gain the education that could be their ladder out of poverty in the long term.
Orlagh Buckley, from Dublin, has been a volunteer with Mary’s Meals for the past six of years. “I’m really looking forward to doing the walk”, says Orlagh “Not only are we celebrating its ten-year anniversary, but we have had to do it on a reduced scale for the last couple of years, so it will be great to have everyone together again!
“When just €18.30 feeds a child for an entire school year, and 93% of donations are spent on charitable activities, I know that whatever fundraising I do will have a great impact”.
The charity’s work is more vital now than ever, with global hunger predicted to increase in 2022. Developing countries are the unwitting casualties of the war in Ukraine. Many of these nations were already suffering from soaring living costs and growing hunger levels due to extreme climatic events or conflicts in their own countries. North Africa, in particular, could be hardest hit with rising food costs, as they import large quantities of grain from Ukraine and Russia.
“Mary’s Meals is a lifeline for millions of the most at risk children in 20 countries across the world”, says Executive Director for Ireland, Patricia Friel. “The rising cost of living is affecting us all”, she says, “but it is always the most vulnerable who are hardest hit, so it’s very important that we keep our promise of a daily school meal to these little ones”.
For more information on the work of Mary’s Meals worldwide and how you can support us, please visit www.marysmeals.ie.
