Which Came First? These Children Know.

The impact of your RetailROI grant to Lend A Hand Uganda

Ask a hundred schoolchildren in rural Uganda the world's oldest riddle: Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

Because of your generosity, they'll answer without hesitation. It was the chicken.

One hundred chicks now scratch around a brand-new coop built with your support, and four hundred more are on the way. When the flock matures in October, their eggs will mean a brighter future for these families: fresh protein on students' lunch plates and income for the community from every extra egg sold at market.

It gets better. The initial $5,000 RetailROI grant inspired another $5,000 in new donations toward the expanded project- a 100% match. Every dollar you gave became two dollars working for these children and their futures.

An Egg and Its Ripples

Lend A Hand Uganda exists to break the cycle of poverty by removing barriers to education. The main engine is a daily lunch program for students at Mwererwe Primary School. For families who may eat only one meal a day, that lunch is what keeps children coming through the schoolhouse door. About 100 students from 30 to 40 families take part, with the impact reaching an estimated 500 to 600 parents, grandparents, and siblings.

What began as simple daily porridge inspired a 10-acre community farm, where mothers and grandmothers grow collard greens, sweet potatoes, beans, and corn for the children's lunches. As part of the cooperative, the women take home a share of the harvest so their families can eat on weekends as well.

But one thing was still missing from those lunch plates: protein.

Your Gift, Multiplied

That's where your generosity came in. RetailROI's $5,000 grant funded construction of a chicken coop on the farm. Rather than think small, they built a henhouse designed for 500 birds. The first 100 chickens moved in this summer and will begin laying in October. Eggs will become part of the daily school lunch, and the surplus will be sold at market, with the proceeds reinvested in the farm. Your one-time gift becomes a source of food and income that renews itself.

The Real Return on Investment

The numbers matter because of students like Francis. He's a budding math whiz who adds sums in his head and wanders the community farm counting the piles and piles of beans his mamma helped grow. Soon eggs from your coop will join those beans on his lunch plate. Little Samuel loves to run but settles in for schoolwork once his belly is full of the Irish potatoes grown on the farm. Because of the lunch program, he's finally growing into his hand-me-down clothes. Then there's Joann, who joined the lunch program in Primary 3 and is now in Primary 7. In a country where only 25% of the population passes fifth grade, Joann never missed a step. Lunch kept her going.

The parents see it too. "I write this letter so as to appreciate the hard work of LAHU that has enabled our pupils to improve in their studies," wrote Musoke Benard, a father at Mwererwe Primary School, in a handwritten note this year.

A chicken coop may seem humble. For Francis, Samuel, Joann, and a hundred children like them, it makes all the difference.

The chicken came first, because you did.

The eggs, and everything they make possible, come next.