Ellington

A student club is lending a helping hand to families in Africa.

Members of Hand 2 Hand, a group aimed at educating students about global issues, are working with Feed the Children, a nonprofit organization based in Oklahoma that raises money to donate to families with children in East Africa. The organization has been helping with emergency relief for 25 years.

Kaitlin Uemura, president of Hand 2 Hand and a UW student, wants to raise funds to benefit the families in East Africa, which has been experiencing a drought since mid-July 2011. The drought is causing widespread malnutrition, and more than half of the 2.3 million children in East Africa are dying because of starvation.

Hand 2 Hand club members sell T-shirts and handmade roses in Red Square, and all proceeds go to Feed the Children. In its first day of fundraising, the club came up with about $175.

“It’s definitely something I feel is really important to me since I’ve never had to face not having food,” said Lindsay Chinn, former activity coordinator of Hand 2 Hand. “The fact that we can send money is pretty amazing.”

Hand 2 Hand is a pre-health, service-based club that does community service around the Seattle area and globally to improve health and education.

Two years ago, the club participated in the Help Me, Help You, Help Haiti event, which aided emergency relief after an earthquake in Haiti. Afterward, members were inspired to do more work that had a global impact, said junior Prarthana Pradeep, a Hand2Hand club member.

Hand 2 Hand members are supporting Feed the Children’s short-term goal of providing emergency food relief. In countries like Ethiopia, Somalia, and Kenya, refugees flee because of lack of food and severe droughts. Feed the Children has done two emergency food drops in which it sends trucks of food to these countries and families wait in line to eat.

Helping provide food isn’t new to Hand 2 Hand. Members volunteer at North Helpline Emergency Services and Food Bank in Lake City, where they distributed the food during Thanksgiving and also raised about $250 for North Helpline.

The money Hand 2 Hand raises for Feed the Children will also go to providing resources like water reservoirs. Two huge water pans, each containing 19 million liters of fresh rainwater, are being built into the grounds of Kenya. These pans will collect water, purify it, and give children and adults access to fresh drinking water.

“If kids get to a point where there’s no access to food or water that is the basis for health, they’re going to get more ill and they have a lot to lose,” Pradeep said.

Somalia is affected and many families go across the border to Kenya in search of food at refugee camps. Mothers carry children over their backs while they walk.

“Sometimes they don’t make it to the refugee centers; mothers have to leave children on the side of the road because they’re too weak from hunger; they can’t carry them,” Uemura said.

Hand 2 Hand also works with Broadview Emergency Shelter & Transitional Housing in downtown Seattle, which houses women and children who previously lived in homes where they experienced domestic violence. Members volunteer to lead a health group every Thursday, at which they teach children ages 6 to 10 about nutrition and exercise.

The student group is hoping to raise not only money, but also awareness of drought and hunger in East Africa.

“We’re all about helping where help is needed,” Pradeep said, “and we felt this problem is something that is very important.”

Reach reporter Kaitlynn Miller at news@dailyuw.com.