What is the lean season?

With FMSC, you can have a huge impact on families in places like Chad that are moving into one of the hungriest times of the year.

It’s called the lean season — the stretch between harvests when food from the last season is gone and the next harvest is still months away. Supplies run low. Prices rise. Parents do everything they can to stretch what little is left. Children feel it first.

That’s what makes this moment so urgent.

This year, experts warn that at least 55 million people in West and Central Africa are expected to face severe hunger during the coming lean season (World Food Programme).

This is exactly when support matters.

When you give to Feed My Starving Children, you put food in motion before hunger tightens its grip even more.

You provide nutritious meals for children and families who cannot wait for conditions to improve. You help meet urgent hunger with something real, tangible and lifechanging.

Feeding a child in Chad

Nine-year-old Eddie* knows hunger. Before receiving FMSC meals in Chad, he struggled to stay awake in class. He was sick and weak. But after he began receiving MannaPack® meals, things started to change.

“I thank the Lord,” Eddie said. “I feel healthy. I no longer doze in class. I no longer feel the headaches or fatigue.”

That’s the kind of difference you make.

During the lean season, more children face the kind of hunger Eddie once knew. More parents are forced to stretch what little food they have left. More families lie awake wondering how they will make it until the next harvest comes.

But your generosity can interrupt that story.

You can place food into the hands of children who need it now. Your compassion can help carry a family through a season of uncertainty. Your action today can help answer a parent’s urgent question: How will I feed my child?

Hope starts with food

Every meal matters. Every gift matters. And right now, your gift matters more than ever.

Thank you for caring. Thank you for responding with urgency. And thank you for putting hope in motion for children who need it now.