Help us feed more hungry people!

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The Outreach Program is working to combat hunger both internationally and domestically. We need your help! We have various volunteer opportunities available at our Des Moines location that will help further our mission of feeding more people in Iowa, across the nationwide, and overseas.

We need help from individuals and/or small groups who are interested in washing dishes, repairing/cleaning equipment used after our events, organizing and restocking our shelves, as well as other various tasks to keep our warehouse running smoothly.

If interested please email or call us at volunteers@outreachprogram.org or 515-287-9162.

About The Outreach Program

The Outreach Program is a nonprofit organization built through social entrepreneurship and the hard work of two Iowans, delivering food, water purification technology, medical care, and education to rural Tanzania. Outreach meals are provided to the hungry both internationally and in the United States.

In August 2014, Outreach began The Hunger-Free Iowa Initiative, which is working to unite all 99 Iowa counties to share resources, expertise, and innovation, making Iowa the nation’s first hunger-free state.

To date, Outreach has helped provide more than 362 million meals to the hungry.

Origin

In 2003 after retirement from successful business careers, Floyd Hammer and his wife Kathy Hamilton were invited to the village of Nkungi in Tanzania, East Africa to help a colleague add an AIDS hospice to a leprosy hospital in the village. Floyd and Kathy enjoyed the work but planned to return to the States and retirement once the project was finished.

As the weeks passed, however, they saw the region had problems that went far beyond AIDS. Hunger was taking a tragic toll on the young; they watched in disbelief and horror as child after child died from starvation.

Kathy said, "Floyd, we have to do something. We cannot allow these children to die like this!" So the couple purchased two truckloads of maize and traded the grain for grass baskets made by the women in the village. Kathy told the Mamas she would take the baskets to America and sell them and bring the money back to build a school for their children. That idea--using the revenue earned through hard work and trade to pay for humanitarian relief-- became the funding model for Outreach, Inc and continues to this day.

With the immediate crisis averted, Kathy then asked the village leaders what they needed to make their villages sustainable. The leaders responded: safe water, food, medical care, and education.

The Outreach mission became and remains the fulfillment of those Four Promises: To provide safe water, food, medical care, and education.

Successes

Since 2004, using funds raised through their entrepreneurial efforts, Outreach has repaired wells and pumps, drilled new wells, and created solar-powered water purification systems both for villages and individuals. They have taken more than 1,100 medical professionals and support staff to Tanzania on medical missions and shipped in thousands of pieces of donated medical equipment.

They have built children centers and schools in Tanzania, which provide midday meals to approximately 1,000 children each school day.

Awards won by Outreach include: The 2013 United Nations Millennium Development Goals Artist and Athletes Award; the 2013, 5000th Point of Light Award jointly presented by Presidents Barack Obama and George H. W. Bush at a White House ceremony, and in April 2014, Floyd and Kathy were inducted into the Iowa Volunteer Hall of Fame, the most prestigious state-level honor that the governor can bestow on volunteers.

Learn more about The Outreach Program at www.outreachprogram.org.