Charity kitchens grow into vegetable gardens

Li Kui, a teacher of Fuhe Hope Boarding School in Sunzhuangzi, Zhangjiakou of Hebei province, works as a part-time gardener over the summer vacation.

"I am very happy," Li said. "When the students return, they can eat the vegetables we plant."

In August 2011, Kraft Foods donated a kitchen to the school as part of the Kraft Hope Kitchen Program, a charity project jointly initiated by Kraft Foods China and the China Youth Development Foundation in October 2009.

To date, 150 fully-equipped Kraft Hope Kitchens have been established in 14 provinces in China, benefiting 75,000 children by providing freshly cooked meals every day, including at Li's school.

As a pilot project in October 2011, Kraft Foods volunteers set up a "Delicious Vegetable Garden" and a pigsty at Shiwan Primary School in Huazhou city, Guangdong province.

Now students and teachers at the school have planted a variety of vegetables and raised 60 pigs that supply almost all the pork and 25 percent of vegetables needed to feed 300 students.

This month the company donated money to Li's school to plant a garden.

"The Delicious Vegetable Garden is our continued effort to develop Kraft Hope Kitchen in the rural schools of China," says Shawn Warren, president of Kraft China.

Warren says Kraft China is going to donate as many gardens to rural schools as possible.

On Monday, volunteers inspected the new Delicious Vegetable Garden in Fuhe Hope Boarding School.

The company believes when the garden is fully completed, the vegetables and meat produced will provide 50 percent of food supply for the 400 boarding students.