Letter From The President

Five years ago in March 2007, after six months of planning and hard work, my dream of Music For Mankind® became a reality when we performed our first Music For Mankind® concert at the Riley Center For The Arts at Burr and Burton Academy in Manchester, Vermont. Since that day we have fed nearly 40,000 people and counting.


I didn't do this by myself. It has taken the care and efforts of many people to get us where we are today.

Two years ago I started the Music For Mankind® Annual Fund Drive to help us in our efforts; through concerts, lectures, documentary presentations, and food drives; to help those who struggle every day to survive, and my heart is deeply touched with gratitude every time we receive a donation.

Music For Mankind® continues to grow. Your help is needed at this time to help us in that growth. Materials and supplies are needed for our new programs that we will be launching in 2012. These programs can put us on a new and bigger "stage" with the ability to help many more people, here at home, and around the world.
 
I'm personally reaching out to you at this time to ask you to please give, even a little. In our Declaration of Hope Sponsorships page you can learn about giving a one-time donation, or sign up for our new monthly subscription. There are several levels of giving, and any level in which you can give will help tremendously. Please take a moment to visit and give. Every little bit really does help.

Thank you for your time, consideration and support.

Sincerely,

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Kelly Moore
President/CEO
Music For Mankind, Inc.

Guest Post by Senator George McGovern

Music For Mankind® contributes to the United Nations World Food Program School Feeding Program, which was started by Senator George McGovern. I have had the pleasure of meeting him twice while in Washington.

Recently the Friends of the World Food Program posted the following from him on their blog, and have been kind enough to allow me to share his posting with you here on my blog.

A Humbling Experience in One of Africa's Largest Slums

By Senator George McGovern

Originally posted on Friends of the World Food Program Blog Thursday May 13, 2010

Hunger is something I have fought tirelessly by encouraging a global commitment to school meals and nutrition. I am currently on a 10-day visit to Kenya and Uganda to see United Nations World Food Program (WFP) projects serving the same cause. This visit comes 50 years after President John F. Kennedy appointed me the first director of the U.S. Food for Peace Program.

On Tuesday, I visited the Nairobi slum of Kibera—the largest slum in East and Central Africa—with more than 1 million people. Life is hard and most residents struggle daily to put a meal on the table. Many of the children in Kibera are orphans, having lost their parents to HIV/AIDS.


I want to share with you a touching experience when I met Lilian Adhiambo, a 22-year-old woman who is HIV positive and lives in Kibera. Lilian, through her HIV-infected child, receives WFP food assistance through a program feeding children who are HIV positive and their families.


With Lilian and her child, I saw the important role that nutrition plays in the management of the disease. Lilian said that with the WFP food, she and her child, together with the rest of the family, are able to lead a normal life and that she can even engage in small income-generating activities which, however, don’t always do very well because of the high levels of poverty in the slums.

Amid the squalor of Kibera, Lilian’s house, though mud walled and with a dirt floor, was sparkling clean and her sparse furniture was neatly arranged in her small room. The resilience I saw in her humbled me.


I danced with a 10-year-old lady from Stara Rescue Centre, and listened to poetry and songs from children in the centre, which is both a school and haven for destitute and orphaned children.

The poems and songs were about the nutritious lunch they receive daily in school because of WFP and how it helps them concentrate in class and encourages them to stay in school. At that moment, I was proud of the fact that in 2001, together with my colleague Senator Robert Dole, we pushed for the McGovern-Dole program which supports WFP’s school meals in Kenya.

I firmly believe that school meals are the most important form of assistance that the United States can give in Kenya and other parts of the world. This is because school meals provide both a safety net for hungry children and an incentive to keep them in school so they can learn for a better future.

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For more information about Music For Mankind® please visit http://www.musicformankind.net/

Peru Calling

"Please do not forget us!"




Music For Mankind® joins Friends of the World Food Program in special fundraiser for Peru

I found these people, an ancient culture of well over 10,000 years old, to be very thoughtful of others. We attended many beautiful ceremonies, and many gracious, kind and welcoming speeches were made. The one that stays with me still is the last one. The gentleman who spoke begged us, "Please do not forget us. We will need your help in the dry seasons, and our neighbors need the help you have so kindly given us, too."

And it really doesn't take much. Just give $5 or $10, if we all help together, we can make a big difference. If everyone in the village brings one brick, we can build a foundation. Here, the foundation is food. Without that, there is nothing else. With that, school becomes a real possibility, with the ability and interest to learn and grow. From that, all things are possible.

Following our successful trip to Peru, Music For Mankind® and the Friends of the World Food Program have begun a fundraising program for the areas we visited. Each of us on the team are reaching out to do all we can to help those who were so kind and gracious to us during our visit there. Please help us help them by going to www.mycampaign.kintera.org/mfm. Make sure to select "The area I'm most interested in" drop-down window and scroll down to select Peru. Friends of WFP staff are alerted to watching for your tax deductible contributions to go directly to helping these incredible people.

Thank you so much for your support!

Kelly

WFP Success in Peru

I just got back from Peru on early Wednesday morning. It was truly a life-changing experience. Before this trip, I would always say, “I can talk about global hunger and the work of WFP until I’m red in the face, but I won’t truly understand it until I see it firsthand.” Well, this turned out to be true. As we were visiting the operations in Peru, I just couldn’t get over how impressive and efficient WFP was in implementing its programs. I saw how WFP does more than just feed people; it helps people feed themselves.

I was fortunate enough to visit a tile-making factory while I was in Peru. The factory was in the village of En Puruchcku. The factory looked very different than the ones we have in the United States. It was an open area, with a couple of huts and a big oven like building. Most of the work was done outside. The factory opened in 2007 and started out as a food for work project. WFP and ABA (WFP’s non-governmental partner in Peru) taught the factory workers different methods of tile production. In 2007 and 2008, the project was able to provide roof tiles for 180 homes (with 400,000 tiles), 9,000 block tiles used for the flooring of homes and 1,000 tubes needed for a sprinkler and irrigation system used throughout the community.

The factory has had so much success that they are now receiving money, instead of food, for their work and are selling these tiles to other communities in the area, as well as several companies in the nearby city of Ayacucho. Prior to purchasing tiles from En Puruchcku, factories in Ayacucho were buying tiles from the capital city of Lima, several hundred miles away.

I found the people who worked in this factory to be truly inspirational. They were extremely hard workers and had a passion for their craft. It really shows you what someone can do with a little bit of help.

Listen to our Behind the Scenes Conference Call from Lima.


Brian J. Ward
Outreach Associate
Friends of WFP