The impact of Mary’s Meals in 2025

In 2025, at least 118 million children were forced into hunger. Malnutrition, food insecurity, and hunger continue to affect millions of children living in poverty across the globe and, as a result, many cannot go to school. Others try to attend on an empty stomach and are unable to concentrate well or participate in class. 

School feeding programmes are seen as one of the most cost-effective interventions to give children the gift of education and lift them out of poverty. Increasingly, school feeding is being recognised as part of the human right to food and as a core element of every child’s right to education.

The unquestionable impact of daily school meals

At Mary’s Meals, our community-led programmes offer a powerful incentive for children to attend school, where reliable meals provide the energy needed to concentrate, learn, and progress. This can be shown by the impact our work had on children in 2025.

Through the support, commitment, and dedication of our donors, staff, partners, and volunteers, we served more than 400 million meals on 91% of school days in 2025, with more than half of our meals being received by girls. We also implemented several programme expansions and as a result we have had the largest single year in our growth. 

“Our programmes grew to reach more than 650,000 additional children in over 1,300 schools across Ethiopia, Haiti, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, South Sudan, Zambia, and Zimbabwe,” says Panji Kajani, our Director of Programme Operations. “This means we are now reaching more than 3 million children with a reliable, nutritious meal in more than 6,400 schools across 16 countries every school day.”

Improving education and health 

We see school feeding as more than simply providing food. In 2025, our school feeding programmes improved children’s access to quality education and learning by reducing hunger-related barriers to participation and supporting attendance, concentration, and learning. The average pass rate across schools in Malawi where children receive our meals increased from 72% before the school feeding programme to 80% after its introduction. 

Daily school meals also enhanced children’s health and wellbeing by ensuring reliable access to nutritious food that supports growth, energy, and development. Across our programmes, at least 76% of children reported that they used to worry about hunger at school. This dropped to 10% once they started receiving meals.

Strengthening social protection, community cohesion and food systems 

Our school feeding programmes provided a social safety net that helps vulnerable households to better cope with economic shocks and periods of food insecurity. In Haiti, 61% of children reported not having enough food to eat at home in the past week prior to receiving school meals. This dropped to 50% after school feeding was introduced. 

School feeding also reinforced social and community cohesion by fostering trust, collaboration, and shared responsibility for schools and communities engaged in delivering the meal. Only 12% of learners in Ethiopia said they played with friends at school every day before the school feeding programme. After meals were introduced, this increased to 58%. 

As part of our commitment to food system strengthening, we delivered over 28,600 metric tonnes of locally procured food for our school meals globally in 2025. From January to June 2025, we procured 1,155 tonnes of maize and 418 tonnes of soya beans from local smallholder farmers in Zambia, which is helping to build long-term, sustainable development through linking outcomes in education and agriculture.

The opportunity for a better future

The mugs and bowls that we fill every school day amount to more than a meal. They are improving the lives of children experiencing poverty, and benefit their families and communities, while offering a way out of poverty and the opportunity for a better future.

Read our 2025 Impact Report here