Particularly if you grew up around horses, you may have heard the expression “putting on the feed bag.” It’s a colloquialism that is normally used to describe the self indulgence associated with overeating. I have learned of entirely different use for a feed bag…

My friend Jen doesn’t know it yet, but I’ve already bought her a birthday present that I know she’ll love. Jen is one of those moms who always tries to feed her children the very best foods. Every time I see Jen she is “feeding” her children, she literally has snacks up her sleeves! I know she will love to know that her new bag will help feed children nutritious school meals through the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).

My two children (three and five years old) absolutely love going to the grocery store with me and picking out what they want to eat. To have food on hand any time, any where is a luxury that we easily take for granted.

I don’t think of twenty-seven year old Lauren Bush Lauren as a celebrity, but a beautiful angel from Texas who like Jen, cares about feeding children.

Lauren Bush Lauren (granddaughter of former President George H. W. Bush) is the Co-Founder of FEED Projects. Born in Denver, Colorado and raised in Houston, Texas. Lauren is a former model and graduate of Princeton with a B.A. in Anthropology and certificate in photography.

She was part of a group of college students that the U.N. sent to ten countries: Guatemala, Cambodia, Lesotho, Sri Lanka, Chad, Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, and Honduras to learn about poverty and hunger firsthand. After returning to the states, she was inspired to design the “FEED 1 bag” which feeds one child in school for one year through WFP. It’s a brilliant idea because it tells the shopper exactly how they are helping by calculating the number of meals that are being purchased for children in need.

FEED has donated over $6 million dollars to the WFP’s school feeding program, which equates to over 60 million meals to school children.

FEED is a small team of five. They make great products that help people who really need help. The FEED bags are chic and fashionable and go a long way to advance a well deserving cause. The bags are made of burlap- which is (as you would expect) used to transport food. All the FEED bags (even one designed by Judith Leiber) have that rustic FEED quality. Buying a FEED bag, the consumer knows exactly what impact their purchase will have.

Lauren’s recent wedding to Ralph Lauren’s son, David Lauren, was similar to the style of the FEED bag…rustic! Their wedding was a retro-ranch style wedding. They were married at his family’s 17,000-acre Double RL ranch in Ridgeway, Colorado. The pictures look like an old western film. Vogue magazine cleverly called their marriage a “Western Union!”Her hand embroidered ivory gown (designed by Ralph Lauren) had a Little House on the Prairie feel to it with puffy shoulders and a high neck. It took 3,000 hours to hand sew.

I have read that Lauren doesn’t plan to slow down on her good work any time soon. I just imagine she will only do more good once she has children of her own. Being a mother just makes your heart grow.

We all want to help like Lauren; sometimes we just need a little guidance.

It’s the same with children. They are just as anxious and willing when given the chance to help. When given a little guidance they too can get involved in helping end world hunger. I love to take my second grade classroom to the computer lab to get on the site www.Freerice.com which is a non-profit website run (like FEED Project) by the United Nations WFP. The site provides education in an interesting and attention holding way and it helps to end world hunger by providing rice to hungry people for free.

The FreeRice motto is “improving your education can improve your life.” My children know that somewhere in the world, a person is eating the very rice that they helped provide, and that makes them feel so good. It’s a win win! I can take my class to the computer lab to feed their minds and they simultaneously gain global perspective and the pride and satisfaction that comes with knowing that they have helped to feed a lot of people- one grain of rice at a time. I hope some of you will find an interest in “putting on the feed bag.”