School meals provider Cordia topped a target to feed a quarter of a million African children with the help of thousands of pupils.
The Step Up to The Plate initiative saw Cordia pay for five Mary’s Meals for every lunch purchased in school Fuel Zones during the two-day initiative.
It costs just £6.15 for Mary’s Meals to feed a child in Malawi for a whole school year – often the only meal the children receive that day.
With an estimated 53% of its population living in poverty, Malawi is one of Africa’s poorest countries.
Cordia managing director Fergus Chambers said: “The amazing support and enthusiasm we received from schools, parents and children for this most worthy of projects helped us not only meet our target but exceed it by some distance.
“Children across Glasgow have yet again shown their willingness to help those in the developing world. We know from our own schools how important adequate nourishment can be to a child’s performance in the class.”
The project will be a major boost for Mary’s Meals, which currently provides more than 526,000 meals a day to children in places of education in 16 countries across Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and Eastern Europe.
Meanwhile, the charity is in the running for a UK award. Calum’s shed, the charity’s base in Dalmally, Argyll, is up for this year’s Shed of the Year title.
The competition has a top prize of £1000 – enough to pay for a meal a day in school for 106 children for a year.
Calum’s shed has been at the heart of the charity’s work since it began in 1992. During the Balkan conflict, Magnus MacFarlane Barrow borrowed it from his father Calum to store donations of blankets and medicine before he delivered them to Bosnia.
Since then it has hosted staff, volunteers and visitors including film star Gerard Butler.
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