Will you Miss a Meal in May?

When was the last time you felt hungry?  I mean really hungry; like you could barely find the energy even to stand up.  When have you gone to sleep because that is the only way you can try to ignore the pain in your stomach and dull ache in your head?

The chances are, like most of us, your answer to those questions is ‘never’.  But imagine how it feels when that kind of hunger is part of your everyday life.

The Drop-in Centre, run by the Midlands Children’s Hope Centre in Gweru, Zimbabwe, provides a daily hot meal for those people who would otherwise go hungry.  Growing numbers of street children, Gweru’s adult homeless and people at risk, either elderly or living with a disability, rely on this service as the only way to guarantee they will eat that day. 

Not only does the Drop-in Centre provide nourishment, it also offers bathing facilities, free medical healthcare, family tracing and reunification, counselling, remedial education and recreation facilities.

The Centre has to pay building rental costs until it can raise sufficient funds to purchase permanent premises of its own.  Finding this monthly payment, plus running costs and the price of food is a constant challenge. ALERT, along with generous community volunteers, contributes to these costs, but currently funding for the building rental has only been secured up until the end of May, 2013.

To raise vital funds, ALERT urgently needs your help

The Miss a Meal in May campaign has been launched to encourage our supporters to help those in need by missing a meal and donating the money they would have spent to the Drop-in Centre instead.     

Maybe you were planning to eat out, but are willing to forgo this treat to help others for whom a restaurant meal is a luxury they can only dream about.  You could invite friends round to your house to ‘miss a meal’ together; great company and lots of laughs without the washing up afterwards!

Please donate what you would have spent on your chosen meal; be it breakfast, lunch or dinner.  You could decide to skip a meal once a week throughout the month of May to make your contribution even more significant.

We need you to spread the word, so that more people know what they can achieve by missing a meal.  Not only will encouraging your family, friends and colleagues to join you help raise vital funds to allow the Drop-in Centre to continue to feed street children and destitute adults, it will also increase awareness of the plight of those living in poverty in Africa.