“Dear PoPville,
I see so many of your readers are looking for ways to help, which is amazing. I have a friend who is an ESL teacher in DC, Mariel Vallano. She started a Go Fund Me page to help her students who are going hungry. Mariel is doing wonderful work to help her students whose families can’t afford milk or bread, let alone laptops. But there are many families at her school who need help. These sweet children she teaches want to learn and succeed but many go to bed with tummy aches because they haven’t eaten since breakfast. Mariel’s students tell her they live in constant fear – not having food, being evicted, or worse.
They do homework on their mom’s cracked cell phone. Their parents (our housekeepers, dishwashers, and busboys) are the “hidden class.” These families have no where to turn for help and the sweet, innocent children Mariel teaches in Northwest DC are starving. Literally. The money that is donated will go directly to buy grocery store gift cards and to helping families pay rent! Mariel has raised over $4,000! Let’s help her get to $8,000!! Even donating just $5.00 means a family has two loaves of bread, which is the difference between a child going to bed hungry, and going to bed with some food in their belly. Here is the link to the GoFundMe page.”