Vitamin Angels Deliver Nutritional Shakes in Earthquake Relief

Shaklee Corporation, the number one natural nutrition company in the U.S., today announced the donation of nearly $600,000 worth of high-protein nutrition drinks — enough for 222,000 servings — to Vitamin Angel’s Indonesian Earthquake Relief Effort for devastated villagers in the Jogyakarta region. Thousands will now receive balanced, nutritious meals thanks to Shaklee’s donation and Vitamin Angel’s unique mission.

The Vitamin Angel Alliance has been addressing the enormous problem of malnutrition around the world since 1994. In 2005 it shipped over 100 million supplements with a wholesale value of $6.1 million to institutions and organizations in over 40 different countries.

The nonprofit Alliance has served Pakistanis after the October earthquake, the Guatemalans left homeless in Hurricane Stan, children in Niger whose parents are dealing with famine there, and now the people in Indonesia. Vitamin Angel helped Americans too, during the Katrina Relief effort, when it distributed more than 18 million vitamin supplements for storm victims. In the past few years, over 37.6 million nutritional supplements have boosted health for people around the planet.

Even discounting disasters, one quarter of the world’s people are chronically undernourished and the absence of adequate levels of essential vitamins and minerals leaves millions susceptible to diseases and death. Medicines often don’t work on the human body that is nutrient-deficient.

Millions of children go blind each year due to vitamin A deficiencies. In a program sponsored by Johnson and Johnson, Vitamin Angel has distributed high-dose vitamin A capsules (and anti-worming tablets) to a million nursing mothers and children in India at a cost of only five cents per child per year, for three years now.

Vitamin Angels may be literally saving the next generation of Tibetans by distributing two million children’s multi-vitamins each month to some of the poorest children in the world.

Founder Howard Schiffer had been working in the natural products and vitamin industry for 14 years when he was asked in 1994 to help provide vitamins to the migrant workers who fell victim to the Northridge, California earthquake. An idea lit up in his mind and he founded the Vitamin Angel. He began tapping his contacts with manufacturers and created a willing Alliance. Wild Oats has joined the cause recently, alongside Rainbow Lite, UNFI, Tishcom, and the NOW Health Group. Make a donation online.