The Food for Thought feeding program encourages families to send their children to school, rather than putting them to work at an early age. Usually, it is necessary for the families to work their children from a young age in order to survive, but since the Food for Though program was started the villages families now have a great alternative, that both puts food on the table, and ensures the education of their children.

The program allows families to send their children to primary school, and in exchange the the families receive monthly packages of rice, sugar, beans and incaparina (a highly nutritional drink), which is an important supplement to the conventional diet for the entire family.

When the schools were started up in the mountains, the teachers complained that the children weren’t smart enough to retain any information. After three years of teaching the children still were unable to remember the letters of the alphabet. It became apparent that the children were so malnourished that they could not concentrate on learning. No wonder, with a diet that consists almost entirely of tortillas with salt.

Since implementing the Food for Thought program the children’s scores have gone up exponentially, along with their weight, general health, and wellbeing of their entire families, due to the additional nutritional supplements provided through the Food for Thought and School Feeding programs.