Bush Feeds the Hungry

Perhaps better known as a fashion model and designer who interned alongside Ashely Olsen with Zac Posen, Lauren Bush, niece of the 43rd president of the United States, has recently launched a new project on behalf of the UN World Food Program (WFP) to combat hunger.

As a college student, Bush was approached by WFP about becoming a spokesperson for their student campaign. She traveled to eight WFP locations around the world as a Student Ambassador visiting the program's School Feeding operations, which provides food and education to hungry kids, and was inspired to do more to help. Using her fashion experience and training, Bush founded FEED Projects, an organization that sells a line of sustainable bags to generate money and awareness of world hunger.

"I wanted to create a way for the average person to make a difference in the lives of hungry children," she tells Women's Health in an interview featured in the November issue.

The bags, which are made of natural burlap and organic cotton, were inspired by the food bags distributed by the WFP. Since 2006, Feed has raised more than $5 million — providing 50 million meals for kids in developing countries.

Bush describes the moment she felt inspired to do something to help the hungry children of the world.

"I found myself in a Feeding center [in Guatemala] with children who were on the verge of starvation," she tells Women's Health. "Compared to a normal school lunchroom full of kids bouncing off the walls, the kids there were slow and lethargic, and they were so tiny because their growth had been stunted."

According to the FEED Web site, almost 400 million children around the world go to bed hungry every night.

Each reusable Feed bag has a number printed on the side representing the number of meals donated or how many kids are beig fed for a full year as a result of the sale of that bag. A $100 FEED bag will feed two children for one year. Bush says it was important to her that the bags be made from environmentally-friendly materials to also promote sustainability.

Bush also recently formed a partnership with Kenneth Cole to create the FEED Health backpack. For each backpack sold, a fully stocked one will be donated to Community Health Workers. The backpacks will be outfitted with all the essential medical equipment the health workers need to provide basic health services, such as malaria testing, vaccinations, birth control and medicine to people in remote villages.

If you'd like to help by purchasing a FEED bag or teddy bear, click here.

Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.