Eat My Lunch turns one … but there’s still more hungry kids to feed

In one year, Eat My Lunch has gone from a small business run out of the family home to a social enterprise that has captured public imagination on how business can drive social change.

During this time EML has delivered over 325,000 lunches, giving 180,000 lunches to hungry kids in 32 low decile schools in Auckland and Hamilton.

“We started Eat My Lunch with a mission to make sure no kids go hungry in New Zealand. In a year we’ve made a difference to a large number of kids, but the problem doesn’t go away,” says Eat My Lunch founder Lisa King.

29% of Kiwi kids live in poverty and thousands go to school every day without lunch. King with the help of award winning chef Michael Meredith started Eat My Lunch with the aim to alleviate a nationwide issue by creating social change through something as routine as eating lunch.

And it’s working - every day Eat My Lunch makes 1200 Give lunches. Kids who previously went hungry can now focus on learning.

“Feedback from schools has been overwhelming; beyond filling tummies kids are nourished with the right kind of food that helps them learn in class. We’ve had schools say the kids’ skin is better, they’re healthier, and it’s helped some schools with attendance,” says King.

But there are still hungry kids; Eat My Lunch has a waitlist of 15 schools and with plans of expansion, starting with Wellington at the end of the month, this number will continue to rise.

FEEDING MORE KIDS

EML was established as a social enterprise that is innovating on the problem of poverty. For every Buy lunch they Give a lunch to a kiwi kid in need. What sets them apart is the fact they have a sustainable and self-funding business model, which everyone can participate in. Buy One, Give One is intrinsically linked.

“Having a social purpose has bought people together; we’ve had over 1,000 volunteers help us with making the Give lunches. It’s signalled to us that people just care about what we’re doing and our purpose,” says King.

To celebrate another first in June, Eat My Lunch will be the first company to use PledgeMe’s new peer-to-peer lending platform, PledgeMe.Lend, to launch a fundraising campaign offering loan notes to their crowd.

“As part of our ethos, we want every Kiwi to be able to participate, which a debt funding campaign enables. Not only will we be the first campaign of its kind in NZ, we are also one of the first to offer a ‘social’ bond (the Lunch bond) which will put part of the interest towards Giving more lunches to kids,” says King.

Eat My Lunch’s campaign goes live in June. To be included in receiving updates about this offer subscribe to the interested lender list here

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