Blogger gathers $10,000 to feed the poor

Food For The Poor received $10,000 from Quaker Oats and Goodbite.com, thanks to a popular food blogger and all of the fans who turned up the heat and voted for her oatmeal recipe on You Tube.

Laura Levy, of www.laurasbestrecipes.com, says she now wants to stoke the fire and fan the flames. The popular food blogger was so excited about what $10,000 could do; she found that she wanted to do more. Because Food For The Poor can feed a child for $36 a year, at least 277 children will be fed with the money from the challenge. Levy wants to raise enough money to feed 500 hungry children.

The children who will be helped with the winnings live in Cap-Haitien, Haiti. Without this money, they wonder day-to-day how they will eat. Levy has become a “Champion” for the organization, and anyone can help her meet her latest goal by visiting www.foodforthepoor.org/lauralevy.

In October, Levy joined the “Awaken Your Senses Challenge” sponsored by Quaker Oats and Goodbite.com. Her scrumptious oatmeal-topping recipe - “Red, White & Berry” – tallied up the most votes among 12 bloggers. Levy won the competition and the grand prize has been granted to Food For The Poor, the largest international relief and development agency in the United States.

Levy chose the charity to receive the winnings, stating on her Facebook page that the organization “was very close to her heart.”

This is the first time Food For The Poor teamed up with a food blogger and participated in an Internet-based challenge.

“Truly, the winners of this challenge are those whom we serve. The children, the families, the elderly we help --- we can claim victory for them,” said Robin Mahfood, President/CEO of Food For The Poor. “It is wonderful that Levy chose to represent us in this challenge. We are grateful our organization and the work we do resonated with her, and we feel blessed for that.”

Food For The Poor is the largest international relief and development organization in the United States and feeds the hungry poor in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America.