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Father and Son Work Together Toward 1 Million Meal Goal

on  March 23, 2021

Just a few years ago, we shared a story about a high school student and rising Eagle Scout, Rohan. At the time, he was working toward a goal of packing 75,000 Rise Against Hunger meals with the help of his community before he started college. He wanted to help what he called “the world’s biggest problem: hunger.”Fast forward four years, Rohan is continuing to help end hunger and remains a committed Hunger Champion. After achieving their goal of 75,000 meals for his Eagle Project, Rohan and his father Jay, who serves on our Bay Area Community Engagement Board, have increased their goal to 1 million meals! And they are cruising right along toward that finish line, not letting the pandemic slow down their meal packaging efforts. To allow for a safe packaging experience in accordance with CDC guidelines, Rohan and Jay have instead lowered the number of attendees at each event while also increasing the number of events they are hosting in their community. Over the past year, Rohan and Jay have hosted eight Rise Against Hunger Experience meal packaging events and are currently planning 13 events in 2021! Their response to the pandemic has been inspiring and impactful in so many ways.Throughout their journey, Rohan and Jay have engaged over 1,000 members of their community in the opportunity to serve those facing hunger and impact lives around the world. Since 2016, friends and family have packaged more than 367,000 meals alongside Rohan and Jay. Their efforts have helped nourish over 3,400 lives, and we cannot say THANK YOU enough!Together, Rohan and Jay have created an extensive process of recruiting volunteers and donors to not only support their goal of 1 million meals, but also make a huge impact in our work to end hunger! And Rohan and Jay say that this is just the beginning. We cannot wait to see the impact that their support has after another four years. Join me in cheering Rohan, Jay and their community on as they continue toward their goal of 1 million meals!Are you interested in making a difference like Rohan and Jay? Learn how you can host your own Rise Against Hunger Experience meal packaging event here.

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To find out more about meal packaging and how to organize your own event, fill out the form and a Rise Against Hunger team member will contact you to start planning. If you’ve connected with our team or filled out this form previously, no need to submit it again. A Rise Against Hunger team member will be in touch soon!
 

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About the Author

Danielle Statires leads our major gift efforts at Rise Against Hunger and is passionate about providing opportunities to those in need around the world. Danielle is continuously inspired by our supporters.

More Posts by Danielle Statires

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.