Introduction from the editor: Each year, Rise Against Hunger team members have the opportunity to join an employee vision trip to witness firsthand the impact they’re helping to make through their day-to-day work. In February, a group of Rise Against Hunger staff traveled to visit our Growing Healthy Children initiative with partner Abba’s House in the Dominican Republic. Growing Healthy Children strengthens school feeding and child well-being in one of the most marginalized communities outside Santiago de los Caballeros. Stone Powell-McDavitt, Area Manager for our Philadelphia location, shares his insights below from the time he spent with his colleagues at Abba’s House.
When we first arrived in Cienfuegos, a remote community in the Dominican Republic, I learned that its name translates to “One Hundred Fires,” and in many ways, that name fits. Not because it’s hot and humid, but because there are mounds of trash that create methane gas and result in constant fires that create a very dangerous environment for everyone in the community.
In Cienfuegos, families — including children — climb mountains of rubbish every day. They sort through trash piece by piece, searching for anything to take to a recycling center and exchange for a few pesos to buy food. That is their reality. But in the middle of that reality stands Abba’s House, a children’s center built with one purpose: to pull kids away from the mounds and into education, nourishment, safety and hope.
Abba’s House is made up of more than classrooms; it includes a medical clinic and a fully stocked pharmacy, filled with medications from Rise Against Hunger’s Gifts-in-Kind donors. After receiving funding from Rise Against Hunger, Rudy, the Abba’s House founder, built the pharmacy in just two months — not because it looked impressive, not because it checked a box, but because every resource at Abba’s House is used intentionally.
Attached to the pharmacy is a storage room that holds Rise Against Hunger boxes full of nutritious meals our volunteers assemble at the meal packaging events we run day in and day out. Most of the meals Abba’s House receives are shipped from our Orlando location. It was really impactful to see the meal boxes on the ground and in person, hundreds of miles away from home.
Updates made to the grounds also stood out, including simple stone gravel lining the walkways laid with funds from the pharmacy building. At first glance, gravel doesn’t seem transformative. But Cienfuegos has a heavy rainy season, and standing water creates breeding grounds for mosquitoes and waterborne illnesses. Many of the children at Abba’s House walk in sandals or bare feet, and standing water plus bare feet can lead to parasites and infections. Gravel isn’t just gravel; it’s prevention and protection.
The children we met were unforgettable. They were learning, laughing, playing and dreaming. Abba’s House plans to expand one day to build a trade school for older students to learn trades like plumbing, electrical work and cosmetology. Several girls we met talked about how they hope to work in a salon someday, and practiced braiding some of our group members’ hair. And in those moments, they weren’t defined by where they live — they were defined by where they’re going. Their environment did not limit their imagination.
One of my most impactful experiences happened as we distributed brand new, donated shoes to children ranging from toddlers to teenagers. At first, it was beautiful chaos as kids tried on various sizes, smiling and comparing shoe colors. Then, some of the older kids started being selective: they didn’t want just any pair of shoes — they wanted certain styles and colors. I caught myself thinking, “They don’t have shoes. Shouldn’t any pair be enough?” It wasn’t my proudest thought, but it was a real thought.
Later that night in my hotel room, I reflected on that moment and asked myself different questions: “Why shouldn’t these kids get to choose their shoes? Why shouldn’t they know what it feels like to stand in front of options?” I can walk into a store and sort through hundreds of pairs of shoes without thinking twice. That day, we brought the shoe store to them.
Before this trip, I knew that our work mattered. We continually talk about and track our impact. But seeing our meals in the storage room and donated medications in the pharmacy, and gravel protecting bare feet, I understood that our work isn’t office work; it’s personal. Our work is building pharmacies in a town with no medical resources. It’s providing countless meal boxes to recipients thousands of miles away. It’s keeping water from pooling around bare feet. It’s letting a teenager choose purple sneakers instead of black. It’s creating environments where children can learn instead of climbing trash mounds. Seeing this work up close and looking into the eyes of a child who now has options, I realized that what we do every single day changes lives all over the world in communities just like Cienfuegos.
None of this work would be possible without the support of Hunger Champions like you who show up to make an impact and create lasting change in communities like Cienfuegos around the globe. If Stone’s story inspired you to continue your impact, donate now or sign up to host a meal packaging event!
