• Other Global Locations
  • Search
Host an Event
Donate

This International Day of Friendship, We Thank Some of Our Best Friends — Our Volunteers!

on  July 30, 2019

The International Day of Friendship is celebrated each year on July 30 to spotlight some of the most important people in our lives: our friends! At Rise Against Hunger, friends are found in many places — through our impact partners, donors and beneficiaries, but one of the most important friendships we have are the ones with our volunteers.Since 1998, we’ve relied on friendships to impact people around the globe who are affected by hunger and food insecurity. Our volunteers are solely responsible for ensuring the meals are packaged, which make them some of the greatest friends of Rise Against Hunger. After packaging, we find friends globally through our impact partners to distribute the meals to beneficiaries who need them most.Most of our volunteer groups come to Rise Against Hunger as friends, but one of the most exciting things to see are the groups that come as strangers and leave as friends. Rise Against Hunger Experience events bring people of all ages and backgrounds together with one common goal: to make an impact on ending hunger.There is something uniquely powerful about joining hands with a group of people you might have never met to make a hands-on impact. At Rise Against Hunger, we’ve witnessed Experience events bring together strangers, build strong teams and even repair relationships. It’s almost impossible to leave after hours of packaging meals without the feeling that you’ve created a friendship with not only the people in the room but the beneficiaries who will receive the meals you’ve packaged.This International Day of Friendship, we encourage you to grab a friend and volunteer with us. If you’ve already attended or hosted a Rise Against Hunger Experience event or have supported our mission to end hunger in this lifetime, we thank you for being a great friend.

Interested in learning more?
Our team is ready to help!

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!
 

Perfect for all kinds of organizations:

  • Corporations
  • Civic & Service Clubs
  • Communities of Faith
  • Colleges & Universities

About the Author

Maddie Laing is the PR and Communications Specialist on the Rise Against Hunger Marketing Team. Maddie manages communication between Rise Against Hunger and news outlets across the globe.

More Posts by Maddie Laing

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.