2020: The Hunger Challenge

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Fighting Hunger and Malnutrition

Students brought the ingredients to cook up change. Tens of millions of children around the world go to bed hungry or malnourished each night. Students from around the world changed that. Through the Hunger Challenge, students were able to mobilize $2.3 million for programs fighting hunger both locally and globally.

Why hunger?

Food is the foundation for a healthy life.

An estimated 821 million people—one person in nine—suffer from hunger worldwide. In the U.S., the percentage is even higher, at 1 in 5. Hunger can be heartbreakingly obvious or deceptively invisible. That’s why Hunger Challenge teams learned about hunger in all its guises—malnutrition, food insecurity, ‘food deserts,’ and more—and investigated how hunger prevents young people in different places from living full lives.

Youth Supporting youth.

Students learned about the impact of hunger and created their own creative recipes in response. Each recipe was matched with $3 and with additional giving due to COVID-19, student efforts unlocked $2.3 million dollars that supported hunger and malnutrition programs in communities worldwide, including UNICEF’s work fighting chronic malnutrition in Yemen and Ethiopia; Mary’s Meals’ school-based feeding programs in India, Malawi, and Haiti; and eleven other community-based organizations confronting hunger and nutrition around the U.S.

Students cooked up change.

To celebrate students delicious work, we created the Students Rebuild Hunger Challenge Cookbook! In it you can explore the favorite meals and snacks of students from all around the world. You can check out the cookbook here and try out some of the recipes!

How It Works

From understanding to action in a few simple steps.

We’ve made it easy for students to help their peers while also taking away a lasting understanding of the effects of hunger, nutrition, agriculture, and global citizenship. Just follow these steps:

1. Register, set, go.

Jump into our resources and join teachers and students worldwide in exploring the varied causes and effects of hunger and malnutrition.

2. Send in a creatively presented recipe.

Share an artfully illustrated version of a recipe—an actual recipe or a more imaginative, conceptual one-—that reflects culture, community, and connection. You can submit your art by sharing a digital photo of it, or by sending it to us by mail.

3. Put food on the table for children around the world.

For every recipe you send us, the Bezos Family Foundation will donate $3 (up to $700,000) to support programs providing immediate hunger relief, nutrition education and hunger prevention, and long-term agricultural development solutions.

Interactive Map

Join a global community of caring.

There are never too many chefs in this kitchen. Students from all over the world are taking the Hunger Challenge, and new ones are joining the effort all the time. Register to be added to the map, then check back to discover the location of new teams as they join. Click the icons to learn how the programs you’re funding are making a difference.

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Get Started

Get started with the Hunger Challenge

To jump into action, use our Leader Guide, Art Making Guide and watch our short introduction video, all posted below. Explore additional learning materials on our Resources page. All are flexible enough for any setting and designed to maximize student engagement while minimizing prep time. Many meet national standards. And all are free of charge.

View more resources

Team Leader Guide

Making Art Guide

About the World Needs Challenge (video)

Updates

Hunger Challenge Gallery

Meet our partners, read inspiring notes, and see creative artwork from teachers and students around the world.

Hot off the presses! Presenting the Students Rebuild Hunger Challenge Cookbook! It includes dozens of creative, silly, and tasty recipes submitted by students during the 2020 Hunger Challenge.

We are thrilled to announce that, because of your efforts, the Hunger Challenge ended with distributing over $2 million dollars to organizations addressing food insecurity and nutrition. You can learn more details—and some other fun facts about the collective action you took in the Challenge—through our newly published impact report! We encourage you to share it with your team.

The Hunger Challenge has officially ended! We are calculating all the impact students globally made together. Come back in late July 2020 to see the impact report!

Mark your calendars for our third and final webcast of the year: Why Achieving Zero Hunger is Important Now More Important Than Ever! May 6, 2020, 1pm EST.

Announcing new COVID-19 partners for the Hunger Challenge.

Learn more about the Spring Campaign running through June 5, 2020 which will count all submitted recipes for double at $6!

We are so excited to have youth-led teams taking the Hunger Challenge. Te'Lario Watkins is a 11-year old mushroom farmer who runs Tiger Mushroom Farms.

We are excited to announce a collaboration with internationally renowned, multi-Michelin starred chef Gordon Ramsay for the Hunger Challenge!

Norwood High School was our first team to submit recipes just 2 weeks into the Hunger Challenge! Here is a great recipe for a a traditional Lebanese dinner!

Grow Dat Youth Farm is partnering with Students Rebuild for this year's Hunger Challenge!

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Wow! Look at this sweet and cool artistic recipe submitted by one of our Students Rebuild high school interns!

The Kohala Center is one of ten organizations supported through the Students Rebuild Hunger Challenge.

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A cupcake shaped cupcake recipe is a one unique and inventive way to personalize the treat you love.

Hunger Challenge partner HAPPY is a youth-founded and led organization that promotes youth empowerment through holistic health education.

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