Operation Feed Estrella was started by a group of gringo friends in 2019. We learned of a small rural Panamanian school named Estrella Los Valles whose only request was that we provide meat for their students once per month!

The school currently serves 55 students from 35 families. Most days, the school provided a small bowl of plain porridge in the morning and a bowl of rice and beans at lunch. We visited the school, cooked lunch for the students and fell in love with them!

We continued our assistance by providing food each month, school supplies, and a Christmas celebration including gifts for each child. We could not have done any of this without generous donations from our friends, our families, our community, and some local charitable groups.

Due to COVID19, our school had to close in March 2020—just three days after it began the new school year. For 55 children, their source of two small meals each day ended. For their families, it meant large scale unemployment, with food becoming scarcer. In June 2020, the school director contacted us to ask for help because the families were becoming desperate for food.

How could we say NO? Could you?

Each month since June, we have been delivering a bag of basic food items to 35 families. The bags run about $40 each, which works out to about $1.15 per person per day! The food is enough to last roughly a week, but it is the best we can do.

As of October 2020, Panama is beginning to lessen restrictions, but the schools will not reopen until perhaps March 2021. Work for our school families is just trickling in. They are still hungry and in need of help. They are also living without personal hygiene, infant, and cleaning supplies.

Unfortunately, our funds have run dry. We NEED your help! We need to raise at least $1500 per month until March or April 2021 to continue our essential operations.

This is where you come in!! We are reaching out to you, our friends, families, and former coworkers all over the Americas and abroad to provide food for our students and their families. Please donate! For just $40, you can provide a week's worth of food for a family of five.