Drew Barrymore Donates $1 Million To UN Anti-Hunger Plans

American actress Drew Barrymore announced that she would donate $1 million to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to help the agency feed thousands of Kenyan schoolchildren. The personal donation kicks off WFP’s ‘Fill the Cup’ challenge in the US to raise enough funds to help feed 59 million children around the world for a year.

(While in Kenya, Drew met children with HIV to whom the WFP provides medicine and food. Copyright: 2007 WFP/Guillaume Bonn)

Speaking on the Oprah Winfrey Show, where she announced the donation, Ms. Barrymore, 33, said she had witnessed first-hand the impact hunger has on poor children during two visits to Kenya in the past two years.

“I have seen with my own eyes what a difference a simple cup of nutritious porridge can make in a child’s life,” she said. “It helps them learn, stay healthy and sets them on track for a bright future.”She has worked with the food agency since 2005 and became a UN Ambassador Against Hunger last year. For only 25 cents a day, WFP can provide an entire school meal to a child in a developing country. Just $50 fills a child’s cup for a year. Online donations are colleted here.

The agency is seeking $3 billion in total so that it can feed 59 million hungry schoolchildren around the globe for the next year, often with porridge, rice or beans. Up to 70 per cent of the food used for school meals is bought from farmers in poor nations.