Established in 1984, Feed the Hungry San Miguel is an independent non-governmental and not-for-profit organization committed to improving the health and well-being of children and their families in the greater San Miguel de Allende municipality in central Mexico. We currently operate a combination of poverty alleviation programs that serve thousands of children and their families through school meals, nutrition education, support for pre-school age children, support for families at high risk of starvation, and cooperative programs with other NGOs and charities.
Donations are tax-deductible for U.S., Mexico and Canada (through our partnership with Amistad Canada).
OUR ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE
- Feed the Hungry San Miguel, Inc. is a USA-registered charitable corporation that sets policy and raises funds to maintain the operating program. The Board of Trustees is all volunteer. A volunteer Advisory Council offers advice and provides assistance to the Board of Trustees.
- Feed the Hungry A.C. is a Mexican registered charitable company (Asociación Civil) that manages the operating program and allows for tax-deductible donations (donataria autorizada) for Mexican taxpayers. An all-volunteer Board of Trustees proposes operating budgets, manages finances, and directs operations. It also maintains contact and compliance with governing Mexican entities.
The Feed the Hungry A.C. Meals Program Director manages operations for meals programs and educational programs. The staff of 11 employees includes 5 kitchen supervisors, 1 head chef, 1 nutrition manager, 1 program administrator, 1 warehouse manager, 1 maintenance person, and 1 cleaning person. Additionally, 24 hired cooks are supported by 56 volunteer moms who operate our school kitchens.
Feed the Hungry A.C. Annual Reports
OUR FINANCES
We successfully operate a complicated enterprise and do so without a paid Executive Director. This is highly unusual for an operation of our size. We are successful due to the fact that we have an active, hands-on professional (and uncompensated) Board of Trustees.
Operational efficiencies, volunteer power, and strong local relationships enable us to maintain the cost of a fresh, well- balanced school meal at just 86 cents (US). US$30 buys 36 meals to feed 2 children for a month. US$300 buys 360 meals to feed 2 children for an entire school year.
Our budget is almost entirely supported by gifts from donors. We plan to maintain at least two years’ worth of operating expenses in our endowment fund.
OUR HISTORY
Feed the Hungry San Miguel started as a small, informal charitable organization in 1984. See the timeline below for how we have grown and adapted to change over the past many years!
Leading up to the 30th anniversary of the organization in 2014, board member Dianne Walta Hart captured the recollections of several of the very special people who defined the mission, organized the processes, raised the funds, and kept the vision alive. Read their stories.
— Time Line
In early 2020, schools were closed by the COVID-19 pandemic, so our hot school meals program operations ceased.
Did that mean we shut down and went home? No. We undertook a mission that truly tested our organization’s ability to go above and beyond anything we could have predicted. People were desperate; we had to find another way to aid the communities we typically support. All while following new safety protocols.
The Feed the Hungry team quickly retooled all its activity to distribute food to the families of the children whom we normally serve. Every aspect of operations was affected: food procurement, packaging, delivering, identifying beneficiaries, and more. Without our usual volunteer packers and drivers, staff workload increased. Vacations were cancelled. Everyone did their share, and then some.
Here is a timeline of what most of 2020 was like at Feed the Hungry San Miguel:
March 11: The World Health Organization declares COVID-19 a pandemic.
March 17: Schools close in San Miguel de Allende; FTH suspends operations of school meals program.
March 17-24: FTH operations team and board members meet to plan response to the emergency.
March 27: FTH is deemed an essential business and allowed to continue operations. Operations team enlists SMA city government’s Direccion de Desarrollo Economico to assist with delivery trucks, drivers, and volunteers to assemble bags of food.
March 30: Reconfigured warehouse; procured essential supplies and food. Began packing food bags with basics of disinfectants, hand sanitizers, and dry meal ingredients.
In just one day, operations staff weighed and packed 500 food bags of 14 kilos each, for immediate distribution.
March 31: Feed the Families program launched. 1,796 food bags were distributed in 19 rural communities and 9 neighborhood in San Miguel.
Over the next ten days, 5,500 food bags were distributed.
April 20: FTH unloads a 40-foot trailer of additional supplies for the growing need for food countywide.
May: FTH adds more communities and recipients to food bag distribution, including NGOs and individuals championing their neighborhoods. Now distributing food to 37 communities, 14 charities to feed 20,000.
June: Began packaging and distributing smaller food bags with eight basic products for smaller families and the elderly, who mostly live alone in the communities.
July: City government staff who had been supporting FTH in the warehouse had to return to their regular duties. Mothers who are cooks in our school kitchens were enlisted to take over the roles the staff from the city had been performing.
August: FTH nutritionists provide instruction and leaflets on nutrition, hygiene, proper use of masks, and hand washing techniques.
October: Six months into the program. 55,446 food bags (590 tons), equivalent to 6,526,630 meals distributed to the needy.
By year end: Food bags dispensed: 70,432 (687 tons) with ingredients for 7,767,390 meals. FTH nutritionists had delivered 150 workshops for 3,500 women on topics such as diabetes prevention and how to make creative use of the ingredients provided in the donated food bags.
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