Our Story

Why Was Helping Hungry Hands Created

Helping Hungry Hands is a volunteer 501(c)3 nonprofit organization created in 2018 with help from Joe and Deolinda Wagner of Eastern Iowa, USA. As a Peace Corps volunteer Joe spent two years in Paraguay, where he met his wife Deolinda, a native Paraguayan. They have two children – Emily and Obie.

The Wagner Family has frequently traveled to Paraguay to visit relatives. Upon finding out that there were children in the country going to school hungry, it was decided a positive change had to be made. With support from family, friends, and many others, Helping Hungry Hands was formed to teach children and their families how to help themselves in order to create a sustainable healthy lifestyle free from hunger.

The Mission and Vision For Helping Hungry Hands

Helping Hungry Hands provides resources to children, their families, and their schools in South American countries to ensure students are well nourished when attending school. These resources include support for nutrition education, demonstration projects on growing their own food, gardening tools and seeds, start-up supplies for raising livestock, financial assistance, and individual student sponsorship. The students, families and school officials are assisted in the development of a self-sustaining community.

Our mission is to ensure the availability of food and water for children attending school in South American countries to help improve cognitive functioning and enhance learning in the absence of hunger.

Our vision is to improve health in children attending school in South American countries along with their families to encourage graduation from high school and attain a successful job in the absence of hunger.

The specific objectives and purpose of this nonprofit organization are:

To ensure no child goes to school hungry
To seek proper health care for students and provide facilities, equipment and a training in health and nutrition
To provide instruction in the skill of gardening, raising livestock, and other food producing ventures
To provide opportunities for students to participate in the preparation of meals using locally grown foods
To sponsor the most needy children in order to give them the chance to have nutritious food and educational opportunities so they can better themselves and their families
To offer counseling for family planning to all, especially teenage girls, in order to reduce unwanted pregnancies
To educate and demonstrate the resources available to them to survive and thrive