Okay I have a confession – I really wasn’t very familiar with the B-52's beyond having heard 'Love Shack' before last Friday night’s concert at the Lowell Summer Music Series where Vitamin Angels was the honorary guest. Everything changed once the music started flowing. I learned that the B-52's hold the illustrious title of the 'Party Band of the Century'. People were wildly dancing and so excited to be partying the night away with their favorite band doing all of their classic hits including, Private Idaho, Mesopotamia, and their mega hit, Rock Lobster. 

How Vitamin Angels got paired with the B-52's revolves around one of our biggest supporters, Rick Antonelli, who a few years ago (when he was COO of UNFI) accompanied me on a life-changing trip to see Vitamin Angels' work up close in the Batey's of the Dominican Republic.

Rick's good childhood friend, Peter Aucella is the mastermind behind the Lowell Summer Music Series which is how we ended up there. Essentially Rick chooses his favorite band (last year it was Michael Franti) and invites all of his friends from the Natural Products Industry to have a big party with Vitamin Angels. In 2009, we were given the key to the city by Lowell Mayor Bud Caulfield. This year, always wanting to outdo himself, Rick and Peter got together with 5th District Congresswoman Nikki Tsongas, to give Vitamin Angels an Honorary Award from the US House of Representatives, acknowledging all of the work we are doing to help children around the world. 

The wonderful thing is that so many of Vitamin Angels' supporters from the Natural Product's Industry were there to enjoy the evening with us. I spoke to a sold-out crowd of 3,000+ (always a tough thing to do when people have come to hear rock and roll) and was so thrilled at the end of the night when scores of people came up to us to thank Vitamin Angels for the work we are doing. What a night! Now if I can just stop singing 'Love Shack.’

Our thanks to Peter Aucella, Rick Antonelli, the B52’s and all of the evening’s sponsors.

Check out Howard's radio interview with 980 WCAP before the event. 

October 14th is World Sight Day followed by World Food Day on October 16th, and Vitamin Angels and It's Moringa have partnered together to #endhiddenhunger by raising money for VA's vitamin A and multiple micronutrient programs - Operation 20/20 and Thrive to Five. Just include the hashtag #endhiddenhunger in your tweets from October 14-16th, and It's Moringa will donate 1 cent for every hashtag tweeted (up to $1,000). Since it only takes 25 cents to provide a child with vitamin A for a year, together we can raise enough money to provide 4,000 children with vitamin A and spread the word to friends, family, and the entire Twitterverse about the importance of micronutrients. 

Why micronutrients?

One common misconception about hunger and undernutrition is that it is caused by simply not getting enough to eat. But for the majority of under- and malnourished children in the developing world, the hidden problem behind their fragile immune systems and underdeveloped bodies is a lack of mincronutrients.  

Here are some facts about childhood undernutrition and "hidden hunger":

• • ONE THIRD of all childhood deaths are caused by undernutrition.
  • Vitamin A is essential to immune function especially in children under five who are most vulnerable to common infections and diseases.
  • An estimated 190 MILLION children under five suffering from vitamin A deficiency (VAD) worldwide

  • ONE high-dose vitamin A capsule can provide one child with sufficient vitamin A for six months

  • For deficient children, the periodic supply of high-dose vitamin A has been shown to reduce mortality by 23%.

  • Vitamin Angels' cost to provide a single child with vitamin A and antiparasitics for a year is 25 CENTS. 

     

For young children, essential nutrients help build the foundation for good health and the opportunity to lead meaningful and productive lives. Join us in taking a stand against hidden hunger this October and send out the tweet below or a tweet of your own with the #endhiddenhunger hashtag. Come back and visit this page to track our progress and see what others are saying about our campaign to put a stop childhood hidden hunger.

"One third of childhood deaths are caused by malnutrition. Help us #endhiddenhunger. 1 cent donated per tweet. www.endhiddenhunger.org." Tweet this. 

It’s Moringa is a new vertically integrated company offering what is considered by many as the most nutrient-rich vegetable tree discovered to date – Moringa Oleifera. With their "It's For Life" business model, the team at It's Moringa, with the help of Vitamin Angels and Nourish America, links purchases of  their moringa products to end malnutrition. The model also educates the natural food industry and general public on the many health benefits of moringa.

This year, It's Moringa will launch their current line of moringa based products at the 2010 Natural Products Expo East trade show. To learn more about products from It's Moringa, click here.

Despite India’s economic growth over the past decade, the country continues to be compared with Africa in poverty surveys. A recent study reported that India’s poorest states have more people in poverty than Africa’s poorest nations. Hunger indexes are dismal, with 42 percent of all Indian children under age five underweight.

An article last week by the New York Times reporter Jim Yardley, reveals India’s current struggle to alleviate poverty and get food to every family in the nation. In his article, “India asks, should food be a right for the poor?,” Yardley discusses the contention over universal food support in India. President of the Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, is pushing to create a “constitutional right to food and expand the existing entitlement so that every Indian family would qualify for a monthly 77-pound bag of grain, sugar and kerosene.” The proposal has the party divided. Debate also ensued over how India should deliver its social programs. Many economists support turning to a market system of vouchers instead of a physical distribution of grain.

As officials struggle to come to a solution, individuals like Ratan Bhuria and his children suffer from hunger. His daughter, Nani, is four years old and weighs 20 pounds and his son, Jogdiya, at age two weighs only eight pounds. They are not receiving government food or cooking fuel, and the children are not enrolled in school where they might receive a free daily lunch.  Breaking the cycle of poverty, which often includes the sale or bartering of food ration cards for loans, is proving a challenge for many Indians under the current system.

Vitamin Angels works with a network of 16 local organizations in India to reach over 1 million children under five with vitamin A supplements in India. You can support these projects by making a donation here>>
 

Read the NY Times article>>

Vitamin Angels recently received an update from our partners, Love a Child, in Haiti. Carole Stufflebeam, a Medical Administrator with Love a Child sent the following photos and captions about their distribution of vitamin A and albendazole in the Ouest region of Haiti.

Vitamin Angels has made it possible for LAC’s Jesus Healing Center to reach out in to the very remote areas to see that the children in their zones receive Antiparasitic and Vitamin A.

Through the LAC Mobile Clinics the remote areas can now be treated with Albendazole and Vitamin A.

LAC and MSPP work in collaboration to get every child in their zone vaccinated. As Central location for the zones Vaccination program they have trained local Haitians to cover the zone through the schools, orphanages and refugee camp.

 2 Satellite Clinics now supplied on a regular basis with meds that allows them to once again open their doors.

Working with MSPP to provide a complete vaccination program for all.Miss Jean, MSPP Assistant Director, coordinates the program to make it possible, as LAC and Vitamin Angels reaches out to compliment it.

Each school, orphanage, and Displaced Family Camp are visited first. Each community will be visited as they go house to house vaccinating the children. 

These wonderful programs would not be able to have a complete vaccination program if it were not for the generous donations from Vitamin Angels. Making it possible for LAC and MSPP to be successful for these children of Haiti.

Reaching out to make it possible for 1000s of children to be vaccinated and receive Vitamin A and Albendazole, who otherwise would not be reached.

Last Friday, I headed south to Los Angeles, California to meet with our local partners at the Northeast Community Clinics. We met at the largest of their 11 clinics in the Los Angeles area, the California Family Care Clinic, located in the heart of downtown LA. There I met with Angie Armada, Operations Director, and Lupe Rosales, Clinic Manager. 

According to Lupe, the California Family Care Clinic alone sees about 200 patients a day. About 50% are indigent with no income and no health insurance. Many are living at or below the 200% poverty level, which means an annual income of $24,070 or less for a family of 4. “We have people coming in who have never seen a doctor,” Lupe explained. When I asked her what brings people to the NECC clinics she informed me that the staff they have are bilingual and culturally sensitive. NECC is able to provide their patients with free basic care, medicines, nutritional supplements and counseling. Lupe explained that by getting people into the clinic, they can provide the materials needed to prevent greater illnesses and emergencies.      

Our meeting was sparked by a donation from Vitamin Angels’ corporate partner, vitaminID.com. After running a three-month long Facebook campaign with a promise to donate a packet of vitamins for each Facebook fan they received, vitaminID.com was able to contribute 111 monthly packs of vitamins to help those served by the Community Family Care Clinic. The packs contain, among other supplements, multivitamins for women. Lupe told me that the vitamins received from vitaminID.com would help to serve adult patients, who are usually so focused on their children’s health that they often neglect their own.

Vitamin Angels also contributed 456,480 doses of children’s multivitamins to the clinics of NECC this year- enough to reach 1,250 children in the area. Lupe and Angie explained that these vitamins are integrated into nutrition programs like the ones at California Family Care Clinic. At CFCC, the nutrition services are separated into two categories. The OB program works with new and expecting mothers and focuses on establishing and maintaining a healthy baby weight. The Healthy Child program works with children with a high BMI who demonstrate a failure to thrive. A registered dietician and staff work with children and their parents to build education on nutrition and health living habits.

Angie informed me that there are many stories of families who have been transformed by the nutrition programs at CFCC. Families come with inaccurate beliefs about nutrition and their health and sometimes with a resistance to change their old habits. After working with NECC staff and receiving the tools to help them improve, changes are visible. “Families will go to the grocery store together and read the labels as a family,” she said. 

When I asked Angie what her hopes are for the future of NECC, she explained that currently, NECC’s main focus is on prenatal nutrition, “but we want to do it for the whole population,” she said. Lupe’s response to the same question was simply “to reach as many families as we can. And education is a must. We need to educate these families as much as we can.”  

Special thanks to Josh Minnick of vitaminID for his work in making the donation to NECC possible, and to Angie, Lupe, and Jill of NECC for taking the time out of their days to talk to me about NECC and their nutrition programs.  

Last week we received an update from our partners at Haiti Foundation of Hope which included several pictures from their recent trip in June. The descriptions were provided by our contact, Joe Markee:
 

These photos "typify what we are trying to accomplish by seeing children who are happy, disease-free and active."


"One of our students eating the only daily meal she'll get (that means a good percentage of our school children are not fed over the week-end; you can imagine their condition by Monday morning-she’ll eat all of that food in front of her). 

"One of our fine pediatricians, Dr. Roy Simms, Yakima, WA, happily at work."

"(this image) demonstrates the work we have ahead of us. These children have little or no clothing, and tend to hang out together, often because they have no family to go to."


"A child with red hair, which is a sign of possible severe malnutrition, or Kwashiorkor, waiting to  be evaluated. The worried look on her mother’s face needs no explanation."


Learn more about Vitamin Angels Operation 20/20 projects in Haiti >>


All photos courtesy, Haiti Foundation of Hope