Our volunteers are the heart of our mission to end hunger at Rise Against Hunger — we couldn’t impact millions of lives each year without them. Since our meal packaging program began in 2006, we’ve seen groups of all sizes, backgrounds and beliefs join together on one common ground: a passion for seeing a world without hunger and providing nutritious meals to people in critical need.Once in a while, a group comes along that goes the extra mile for our cause. Our partnership with Catholic Relief Services (CRS), Helping Hands, is one of those partnerships. The Helping Hands program has a two-fold mission that aims to target hunger relief in the form of food aid and funding of long-term hunger relief initiatives.

Last year, CRS Helping Hands provided 1.6 million Rise Against Hunger meals to Burkina Faso. Burkina Faso is a landlocked country in West Africa where one out of every five people are food insecure.Ali, a 53-year-old man, is one of the lives CRS Helping Hands made an impact on last year. Ali, his wife and five children live in Burkina Faso and receive Rise Against Hunger meals through CRS. After overcoming leprosy, Ali has been able to find a home through CRS and ensure that his family will receive nutritious meals each day.Through our partnership with CRS Helping Hands, we’ve been able to provide three containers of meals each year to Burkina Faso. More important than the number of meals are the actual lives impacted. Their efforts have helped us provide nourishment for over 10,000 people in the past year alone.

Inspired to make an incredible impact? Visit our How You Can Help page to find out how!