As part of its commitment to ameliorating child hunger, Nationwide Marketing Group followed up its shipment of some 150,000 kids’ meals to Haiti with a visit to the impoverished island.
A nine-member delegation from the independent dealer organization, led by president Tom Hickman, recently visited orphanages and food distribution facilities there to offer hands-on assistance and assess local needs. (Photo above: Nationwide’s Chris Kirk at the New Life Children’s Home in Port-au-Prince.)
“It’s an honor to represent Nationwide’s members, vendors and staff to deliver the fruits of their labors to children in need,” Hickman said. “We know that our members are making a daily difference in the 14,000 communities they serve across the U.S., and with the scale of the collective group, the efforts mean a huge impact both locally and globally.”
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The trip was an outcrop of Nationwide’s partnership with No Child Hungry, the meal distribution arm of My Neighbor’s Children, led by president William Lowry. The Florida-based children’s charity was chosen as the beneficiary of the group’s commitment to “give back,” which attendees demonstrated by hand-packing over 300,000 meals during Nationwide’s last two PrimeTime conventions. Roughly half the meals were distributed to the shows’ host cities of Orlando and Las Vegas, with the balance shipped to Haiti.
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“It’s hard to really describe the experience of working alongside the No Child Hungry team in Haiti,” Hickman noted. “Even when considering hundreds of thousands of meals, the difference was measured in small moments. The smiles on the faces of those children as food was placed in their hands sum it up better than any words, and made evident how much the effort of so many people working together to make a difference has been.”
Nationwide plans to introduce further investment and support for No Child Hungry and its affiliate charities at its February 2019 PrimeTime gathering.
