30 Hour Famine

A child dies from hunger-related causes every 13 seconds.

That’s as many as 7,000 children younger than 5 — killed every day. In extreme situations, like a food crisis, children do die from starvation. But in the vast majority of cases, children die because their immune systems are powered down by malnutrition, leaving the door wide open for deadly diseases.

Most of the 20,000+ child deaths every day are 100% preventable.

No child should die from an empty stomach. Nearly all of these deaths are from simple causes with existing cures: diarrhea, malaria, and more, many of them resulting from (or made more likely by) hunger and poverty.

Around the world, 925 million people are hungry.

That’s roughly 3 times the population of the U.S. — and it’s one of every seven people in the world. Many families depend entirely on what they grow, so they’re never more than one disaster away from hunger. Others can’t find decent-paying employment; still others work multiple jobs but can barely afford enough food for their children.

The poor spend most of their money on food.

Imagine you’re one of the 2.6 billion people who live on less than two dollars a day. You’ve got to care for your whole family with this meager amount — not just food, but shelter, school, healthcare, and clothes. And food prices take up most of your budget. How do you make ends meet? Buy medicine instead of food when somebody gets sick? Go from two meals a day to one? These aren’t choices. They’re life sentences — and the prison is poverty.

We can help save kids’ lives.

Here’s the proof: Since the Famine started in 1992, the total number of kids under age 5 who die each day has fallen from 40,000 to just over 20,000. That’s thanks to the hard work of a lot of people, including groups like yours who do the Famine.