From 10 November 2025, Mary’s Meals will run its annual Double the Love campaign - a match-funded appeal that doubles all donations for a limited period. For two months, all contributions (and any increase to existing regular gifts) will be matched, up to a total of £1.1 million. The campaign provides an opportunity for supporters and philanthropic partners to maximise their impact by helping to feed more children in some of the world’s poorest communities.
Double the Love - your donation matched | Mary's Meals UK
Case for Support / Business Case
Mary’s Meals provides daily meals in schools for children living in extreme poverty. These meals attract children to the classroom, where they can receive an education that offers the best route out of poverty.
The Double the Love appeal reflects an enduring belief in the power of partnership. By leveraging match funding, Mary’s Meals amplifies the generosity of donors and creates an immediate multiplier effect: every pound given translates directly into twice the number of meals served and twice the number of opportunities created.
Beyond its short-term financial uplift, the campaign also serves as an entry point for philanthropists and institutions interested in measurable, scalable and community-led impact in international development.
Mission
Mary’s Meals’ vision is that every child receives one daily meal in a place of education, and that those who have more share with those who lack. The organisation works with local communities to deliver school feeding programmes that are sustainable, cost-effective and community-owned.
Founded in 2002, Mary’s Meals has grown into a global movement operating in 16 countries, serving over 3 million children each school day. The organisation’s mission is rooted in simplicity: to meet the immediate need for food while enabling long-term change through education. This dual focus - nourishment and learning - forms the foundation for breaking the cycle of poverty.
Whilst we will not exit a programme until we are confident it is robust and firmly embedded within local systems, ensuring its success for years to come, a key part of our approach is transitioning the delivery of school feeding programmes - and the associated costs - to local governments where possible and whenever the conditions are right. In Kenya’s El Doret region, for instance, the majority of the programme continues to operate effectively under local management after transition, demonstrating the potential for sustainable, locally owned solutions.
Through this combination of direct support and long-term capacity building, Mary’s Meals not only feeds children today but helps lay the groundwork for stronger, self-sufficient communities tomorrow.
The Challenge
Across the world, millions of children face chronic hunger and food insecurity. For many families, survival depends on daily labour, and sending a child to school can mean losing vital income or labour at home. The result is that education - and the hope it brings - is often out of reach for the poorest children.
Global instability, conflict, and climate change have further compounded these pressures, driving up food prices and straining fragile communities. The UN estimates that hunger affects hundreds of millions of people worldwide, disproportionately impacting children in sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income regions.
Mary’s Meals focuses its efforts precisely in these areas - places where a simple daily meal can be the difference between a child learning or leaving school.
Approach
Mary’s Meals’ model is distinctive for its simplicity, sustainability, and scalability:
This approach has been consistently validated by independent studies and donor due diligence reviews for its cost-effectiveness and social return on investment.
The Double the Love appeal builds on this proven framework by harnessing matched funding to accelerate impact - allowing Mary’s Meals to expand existing programmes and reach children still waiting for support.
Impact So Far
Since its founding, and with the generosity of match funds such as Double the love, Mary’s Meals has evolved from feeding 200 children in Malawi to more than 3 million children every school day.
Evaluations of the programme have shown:
Mary’s Meals’ grassroots partnerships and low administrative overheads have enabled a scalable, resilient model that delivers high impact at low cost – 93p from every £1 goes directly to our programmes.
Mary’s Meals 2024 Double the Love campaign enabled us to reach an additional 462,000 children with life-changing school meals, including in countries such as South Sudan, Ethiopia, Madagascar, and Haiti. This powerful model of match funding allowed us to scale our work faster and further, ensuring that even more children are able to access an education through the promise of a daily school meal. This year, as we continue to grow, Double the Love shows how every pound given — and doubled — can transform lives at scale.
What’s Next
Through the Double the Love campaign, Mary’s Meals aims to unlock up to £2.2 million in total funding, enough to provide millions of additional meals in the coming year. The matched funds will allow the organisation to strengthen programmes in existing countries and respond to urgent requests from new communities seeking help.
Mary’s Meals welcomes engagement in many forms: philanthropic gifts, Donor Advised Fund grants, shares, corporate support, or simply sharing the story of Double the Love with others who might wish to help.
For those inspired to contribute, gifts made from the 10th of November will be matched, doubling their impact and allowing more children to receive the meals that make education possible.
Biography
Mary’s Meals is a global movement providing daily school meals to more than 3 million children across 16 countries. Founded in 2002 by Magnus MacFarlane-Barrow, who remains CEO of Mary’s Meals International today, the charity began after Magnus a boy called Edward, whose mother was dying of aids. Edward told Magnus his dream was simply to have enough to eat and to go to school.
This encounter inspired a simple yet powerful vision: that every child should receive one daily meal in a place of education. Headquartered in Scotland, Mary’s Meals continues to grow through community-led partnerships, offering a practical, sustainable, and scalable response to hunger and poverty around the world.