Yum! Brands’ fast food companies Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Philippines make it easier for many Filipinos to join the fight against hunger with its Deliver Hope fundraising campaign, ongoing until January 15 next year.
Customers buying their favorite pizza and tacos can help in the campaign, now on its eighth year, by dropping cash donations to the coin banks, or buying either a postcard featuring Deliver Hope ambassador Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao (P40) or a limited-edition Deliver Hope cup (P50) at any of the 174 Pizza Hut outlets and Taco Bell branches nationwide.
a limited-edition cup at any Pizza Hut or Taco Bell outlet nationwide
The funds raised by this yearly campaign will go directly to World Food Programme’s ongoing feeding program for schoolchildren in conflict-affected Central Mindanao. Deliver Hope is part of Yum! Brands World Hunger Relief Programme 2015, the world’s largest private-sector hunger relief initiative spanning more than 125 countries and territories.
“The participation of Manny Pacquiao as campaign ambassador adds a special dimension to our Deliver Hope initiative this time around, because we have a world-renowned athlete who was born and raised in Mindanao to help us reach our goal of eliminating hunger in the Philippines,” enthuses Pizza Hut and Taco Bell Philippines chief operating officer Teck Huack “TH” Lim.
Being a Mindanaoan, Pacquiao immediately agreed to be the face and the voice of the campaign. “I chose to join the 2015 World Hunger Relief Programme because I would like to help our countrymen in conflict-affected areas of Mindanao who have little to eat,” Pacquiao says.
“I find it sad that children go to school everyday with almost nothing in their stomachs. With the help of the World Food Programme, they become excited to go to school because food motivates them to study well,” adds the Filipino world champion boxer.
According to WFP Philippines representative and country director Praveen Agrawal, the meals provided through the school feeding program have helped increase the retention rate of students in WFP-assisted schools by over 90 percent – “a testament to how school feeding helps these children stay in school.”
WFP’s feeding program targets 65,000 school children from conflict-affected communities in Lanao del Norte, Lanao del Sur and Maguindanao every school year. WFP provides the children with hot and nutritious meals which consist of rice, mung beans and vegetable oil during regular school days on-site. A meal for one child costs only P10.
“We would like to commend and thank Pizza Hut and Taco Bell for eight years of a strong and continued partnership, making sure that nutritious meals are provided to the children that need it the most,” says Agrawal.
Since 2008, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell have helped raise P27 million for WFP’s school feeding programme in the Philippines.