When we go to the grocery store we are confronted with hundreds of choices of the foods we can purchase and with this food we fuel our minds and bodies so that they can work to their full potential. However, when you live off your land as 80% of the people of Malawi do, your choices for food and its nourishment are grown on your one acre of land. The survival and productivity of your family will depend upon your harvest which in turn depends on whether the rains come and when they come. There are years when very little rain falls during the rainy season, years when it comes too late, and years when it comes with strong winds and flooding water. Thus, the harvest of corn from their one acre of land can range between 10 bushels to 50 bushels. When the conditions are good the 50 bushels can sustain a family for most of the coming year with enough left over for seed for next year’s crop. The Malawi Partners foundation is eager to be able to step in with funds when the crops fail and families need help to survive until the next growing season.

After the corn is harvested it is carried in 80-pound sacks on the heads of women as they walk 8 miles to the nearest corn mill to have the corn ground into flour. Then the women carry the corn flour back home and use the flour to make nsima, the staple of the Malawian diet. The Malawi Partners foundation purchased a diesel-fueled grain mill for the village saving the women of the villages the long difficult walks to the grain mill in town. The grain mill now operates 6 days a week and provides employment for 4 villagers. Malawi Partners would like to raise the money for a second mill.