Photo Courtesy Of Persis And Alexis Bhadha
BY KYRA BACON
Cooper City High School Senior Persis and Junior Alexis Bhadha recently started a new club that supports the globally-recognized charity Feeding Children Everywhere that aims to provide nutritional and fulfilling meals for children all over the world.
Feeding Children Everywhere is a non-profit organization that has given more than 20 million meals to starving children all around the world, 10 million in the U.S. alone. Each meal is crafted with a special recipe that contains all the necessary nutrients for good health- lentils, white rice, vegetables and a rare salt. Every time someone donates just $0.25 to the organization, another meal is prepared and another hungry mouth is fed.
Persis Bhadha first learned of the charity during a 3- day program that she had been accepted into, HOBY, in early 2011. During one day of the HOBY program, participating students skipped breakfast and lunch, as planned by the program’s directors, to feel a portion of the hunger pains that starving children all over the world experience everyday. The representative for Feeding Children Everywhere then told the students about the organization and how, by helping to package the meals that people had donated, they could make a difference in those children’s lives.
“We felt like we were making a physical difference, and it was such an empowering feeling that even though we had never met this person that we were giving food to, we just knew it was some little kid in Ghana that would be eating this same food we are packaging and we would be able to satisfy their hunger pains,” Persis Bhadha said.
Bhadha and her younger sister Alexis decided to bring the selfless cause home and started volunteering at a booth that donates to the charity at Sunlife Stadium during Miami Dolphin football games, bringing various friends and family with them to help out. The nine to eleven hour shifts were sometimes grueling, especially during half-time, but the Bhadhas knew it was for a good cause. The amount of money that would go to the charity depended on the number of people that worked the booth, so Persis and Alexis tried to get everyone they could to come. They have raised $4,015 so far and hope to make much more.
“We hope to empower the next generation to take initiative to start their own projects and find a cause they are truly passionate about,” Alexis Bhadha said.
Even though volunteering during Dolphins games proved to be profitable, the Bhadhas decided it was time for the next step. Over the past two years, they had tried countless times to start a club at CCHS, but were denied. This year, however, they got the club of the ground and in addition partnered with both Key Club and NHS to help the cause. The sisters are also considering making the club a chapter project for DECA. With about 30-40 members altogether and just two meetings in, the club is off to a promising start.
“We are all connected in the bond of humanity, no matter where we are in the world and we all feel the same hunger pains, have the same needs, and while some of us have the ability to satisfy these needs, others don’t and we need to help them,” Persis Bhadha said.
The Bhadhas have many ideas for the club that are being set in motion. They plan to decorate bags to ask for donations, followed by selling candy boxes or cookies sometime this month. With the
money earned from these upcoming fundraisers in addition to the money made personally at the booth, Persis and Alexis hope to reach their goal of $10,000. On February 19, all their efforts will pay off when the club members and anyone else who would like to join will get together to package the food to send to starving children all over the world.
“I feel like it is an amazing project and hopefully we can raise the $10,000 to help others who don’t have even a fraction of what we do,” Persis Bhadha said.
