Argyll-based charity Mary’s Meals has received £425,0000 of funding from the People’s Postcode Lottery.
The cash will help the Dalmally charity to provide life-changing school meals for some of the world’s poorest children.
Part of the funding award is being used to provide 9,000 impoverished children around the world with daily meals for a whole school year.
The remaining funding from players of the charity lottery will support the development of Mary’s Meals as it grows to reach more hungry children.
Mary’s Meals runs school feeding programmes in 15 countries to enable chronically hungry children to gain an education that can set them free from poverty in the future.
Along with essential investment to strengthen infrastructure, funding is being used to deliver projects in staff development, which includes work to protect and promote the founding values of the charity.
People’s Postcode Lottery players Tracey Black and Gilli Chrystal joined founder and global chief executive of Mary’s Meals, Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, and Callum Aitken, programmes advisor with People’s Postcode Lottery, to celebrate the news.
They gathered in Dalmally, at the shed where the work of the charity first began.
Mr MacFarlane-Barrow said: “We are incredibly thankful to players of People’s Postcode Lottery for sharing in our belief that every child should have enough to eat and an education. Together, we are giving hungry children the chance to fulfil their hopes and dreams for the future.”
Mary’s Meals provides school feeding in countries including Malawi, Kenya, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Syria and Lebanon.