"For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened." -- Matthew 7:8

On a hot April day, hundreds of kids packed a room at School of Hope in the mountains of Haiti. They were on spring break, but they came anyway.

A group of Feed My Starving Children staff and donors had come to distribute MannaPack™ meals, and the kids didn’t want to miss it.

School of Hope opened in 2012 with a goal of providing 25 to 30 kids with food, water and education. Today the school ministers to nearly 400 children daily.

“We find ourselves in this enormous God-driven servant opportunity in this a most desolate place of poverty,” founder Dawn said.

The free pre-primary Christian school uses only Christian Creole curriculum and provides a salary for 15 staff who teach basic math, reading and writing. The school also teaches girls about menstruation.

As the school grew, Dawn grew in her faith because they simply could not provide enough food for the children streaming through their doors.

“What good is a school when children come starving,” she asked. “Just look at the Maslow Hierarchy of needs…..without food there would be no learning. What a waste. What are the basic needs of a child – the love of Christ, food, water, shelter, education and medical care.”

In Her Own Words

"OK God, "I said to Him, "I can teach about Christ when I visit, I can love a whole lot of children, but I cannot fund food, water, teachers, shelter, medical care and clothing. It is too much. I just do not have that kind of money.”

Then internally I wrestled with how can it be too much to feed a child and give them water? Really Dawn?

When you tell God you can't…well he tunes you up a bit. At least that is what he does to me regularly.

I should not have asked, knocked, sought…….I sought out Feed My Starving Children and He has provided!!!!! But with that comes tremendous responsibility.

Because your organization said yes to provide daily meals for our children at our school, we must teach the word of God with such passion that these children have no doubt who loves them passionately.

We can now keep God's school opened. We now have money to pay our staff every month even during the summer. We have money for fuel to cook the food, money for water and money to purchase our first curriculum.

The Power of Food, The Power of Education

There are hundreds of schools whose staff can tell you similar stories. The need is great, but food is powerful. Nutritious food paves the way for education. It helps kids concentrate in school and dream for the future.

The burden of undernutrition* stays with a child for life. One reason is because stunted children are more likely to have lower education levels and lifetime earnings, according to the World Food Programme. They also have an increased risk of chronic disease and early mortality.

Hot lunches reduce school dropout rates by 200-300 percent in developing countries, according to the World Food Programme.

This is the power of food. You have the power to make a difference in the lives of so many precious children.

4 Facts About Education

1. Enrollment in primary education in developing countries has reached 91 percent but 57 million children remain out of school

2. More than half of children that have not enrolled in school live in sub-Saharan Africa

3. An estimated 50 percent of out-of-school children of primary school age live in conflict-affected areas

4. 103 million youth worldwide lack basic literacy skills, and more than 60 percent of them are women

-UN Sustainable Development Goals

For the next few months, we are going to bring you stories of the power of food in education. We’ll introduce you to our partners on the ground doing amazing things to educate children and empower them to bring lasting change to their communities. 

Follow along on social media using the hashtag #fmscPowerofFood. We can't wait to see how YOU will unleash the power of food.

*Editor's note: Undernutrition is a more specific term used by UNICEF to designate when an individual can no longer maintain natural bodily capacities, such as growth, resisting infections and recovering from disease, learning and physical work, and pregnancy and lactation in women. Poor feeding of infants and young children, especially the lack of optimal breastfeeding and responsive complementary feeding, along with such illnesses as diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria and HIV/AIDS, often exacerbated by helminths, are major causes of undernutrition. The term malnutrition includes undernutrition and overnutrition. (UNICEF)