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A Community Feeding Program Eases A Filipino Mother’s Financial Burdens

on  February 23, 2026

Imelda, a wife and mother of four, lives in Cagayan de Oro, a growing city in northern Mindanao, the Philippines’ second-largest island. 

While Cagayan de Oro has become a cultural and urban center in recent years, there are still several pockets of extreme poverty, particularly in informal settlements and remote barangays (neighborhoods). Many families — including Imelda’s — do not have reliable access to food, healthcare or livelihood opportunities. Imelda’s husband works at a construction site, but his income has often not been enough to cover all of the family’s basic needs and care for their child with Down syndrome. 

International Care Ministries (ICM), Rise Against Hunger’s in-country partner, implements a program called Transform to holistically address poverty and hunger across six communities in the city. The 15-week program provides participants with training on nutrition, livelihood skills for income generation and more, supporting families on their journeys out of poverty. 

Rise Against Hunger provides nutritious meals to Transform participants through a community feeding program. Arlene, ICM’s Chief Administrative Officer, shared, “Families living in ultra-poverty facing hunger daily and children diagnosed with moderate and severe malnutrition receive Rise Against Hunger meals to meet their nutrition needs.”

Imelda is one of the Transform participants. She attends weekly training, and then she and her children receive hot, nutritious meals. 

The Rise Against Hunger fortified rice-soy meals are cooked by community leaders over a wood-burning stove, with vegetables and eggs added. Each person receives a generous portion, and many families sit together to eat. The community feeding program feeds hundreds of people across the city each week. 

This is the Journey of a Meal in action. The meals provide Imelda with more than short-term relief; they also support her resilience and long-term food security. With her family’s health and nutrition supported, Imelda now has hope for her future. The community feeding program has eased her family’s financial burdens and ensured their nutritional needs are met. Thanks to the training received through the Transform program, Imelda is interested in starting a small business to earn money for her family. “I might start a small business with the recipes I learned,” she said.

Nutrition, education and economic empowerment are transforming Imelda’s life — and this critical work wouldn’t be possible without your support. Donate today to carry families, like Imelda’s, through every step of The Journey of a Meal, turning nourishment into opportunity, opportunity into lasting change and lasting change into hope. 

About the Author

Hannah Payne is the Public Relations & Communications Manager at Rise Against Hunger. She facilitates communication between Rise Against Hunger and the media.

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.