When we launched the school feeding program at Gituamba Primary in 2024, our goal was modest and specific: reduce the number of children who spent their morning lessons distracted by hunger, and reduce the number of families who withdrew children from school during particularly difficult financial months.
A year later, the headteacher's informal review, shared with our committee ahead of this update, described a noticeable shift in the mid-morning energy of classrooms that previously saw pupils putting their heads down on desks by the second lesson, particularly among pupils from households the school already knew to be food-insecure.
The program currently reaches roughly 180 pupils with fortified porridge each school morning, and a full lunch of githeri or beans and maize on three days a week, prepared on-site by two parent volunteers who receive a modest stipend funded through general donations and occasional bulk-purchase discounts from a Kasarani wholesaler.
“We used to see two or three withdrawals a term during the hardest months of the year, families simply could not manage. Since the feeding program started, that number has dropped sharply, and parents tell us directly that the free lunch is part of why they can keep their children enrolled.”
— Headteacher, Gituamba Primary
Funding remains the program's biggest constraint: feeding 180 children three days a week costs more than our general donation base reliably covers month to month, and we have had to pause the lunch component briefly twice during particularly lean periods, always restoring it as soon as funds allowed.
This is one of the clearest examples of where a small, recurring donation makes an immediate, visible difference, and it is why the feeding program remains one of our most actively fundraised initiatives.
Your donation or volunteer hour goes directly into work like the story above — not overhead.
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