About Our Commemoration

The Danforth Center is focused on eradicating malnutrition and the many diseases and other challenges related to it through science – fortification of crops to make them not only more nutritious but more plentiful and resistant to disease and drought conditions. In much of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa (a focus area for the Danforth Center), people die from malnutrition every day. Studies by the World Health Organization indicate that a child dies every six seconds from malnutrition and related diseases. When faced with this reality:

• the response from the heart is to help immediately
• the response from the head is to seek long-term solutions

The Danforth Center’s World Food Day Commemoration will engage people in both types of solutions.

From the Heart: Engage Children and Adults in a Hands-On Activity which Immediately Alleviates World Hunger: Each day, Danforth Center scientists work on long-term nutritional solutions to assist the poorest of the poor. In the meantime, our hearts tell us that we can do still more. Thus, we are commemorating World Food Day with a "food packaging event" in which St. Louis children and adults will come into the Danforth Center and, in a one hour period, will be part of a team creating food packets for delivery to a location in peril. Our 2010 destination was Tanga, in Tanzania. For this community, we created over 355,000 meals – nearly double our goal!

In 2011, our goal is to create 500,000 meals, all of which will benefit people suffering from hunger in a designated country in Sub-Saharan Africa (TBD).

The 60 minutes of creating the food packets – children as young as seven can help when accompanied by a parent – will provide a remarkable opportunity to learn about global hunger and the importance of good nutrition. The added benefit will be the “companion lessons” included – the importance of agriculture, science, compassion and much more.

From the Head: Educate Children and Adults About the Leadership Role St. Louis is Taking in Addressing Global Malnutrition: : After packaging, the volunteers tour the Center and its greenhouses, meet members of our team who hail from different parts of the world and begin to understand the long-term health and hunger solutions on which we work. Time spent following the packaging session will not only provide insight into such questions as "What goes into scientific discovery?" and "What are the tools to engage in research in this age of technology?" – visitors will also be able to meet some of the members of our team who hail from distant lands in search of solutions to help the truly impoverished.

About Costs
Donation amounts for 2011 are $10 per student and $20 per adult.