Thousand one, thousand two, thousand three, thousand four, thousand five, thousand six, in the short period of time it took you to read that a child just died from severe acute malnutrition.
That number is higher than people that die from AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.
It’s because every six seconds a child dies from something so preventable that Alex Cox and Mark Slagle are driving around the country in a 1971 Winnebago promoting MANA Nutrition.
During that journey, they parked their orange shag-carpet-covered “MANAbago” on campus in an attempt to enlist Lipscomb students in the fight and let them learn about MANA Nutrition, which is provided in special packets of peanut butter.
But this isn’t just any peanut butter; this peanut butter saves lives.
MANA creates and doles out this ready-to-use therapeutic food (RUTF) which is a combination of peanut butter, milk and vitamins.
The therapeutic food packet supplies children with the proper nutrition needed to increase brain development. Eating three packets of MANA a day for four to six weeks, a child can grow from being severely acutely malnourished, to being fully developed. The nutritional supplement is helping save the lives of malnourished children around the world.
The gaudy MANAbago travels around the country to help inform people of the hope that MANA Nutrition provides to malnourished children.
The young men teach crowds about the hunger epidemic around the world and inform them of the ways that therapeutic food can save the hungry.
Although MANA has contracts with UNICEF, UNICEF only has enough funds to reach 10 percent of malnourished children in the world.
MANA Nutrition is combating those odds to fill the gap through empowering communities to give to the cause.
“This is just one creative way to try to address the other 90 percent of children who are dying every day,” said Cox
“My prayer is that the MANAbago and the idea of this cross-country adventure will be stripped away and people will see us as two guys who are trying to be a part of something that is bigger than us, and trying to be a part of a bigger story,” said Slagle.
“MANA is something that is bigger and is making a difference in the world”
The goal is to save 10,000 children by Christmas.
On Oct. 4 the MANAbago made a stop at Lipscomb to help promote the mission; joining them was the CEO and Co-founder of MANA Nutrition, Mark Moore, who spoke at that day’s Gathering.
While on campus the men relayed the message of saving lives through MANA in classrooms, in the Gathering and in the square. They let students taste-test the packets. Students banded together to purchase wristbands, patches, pens, T-shirts and an assortment of MANA apparel.
The Lipscomb community raised enough money to provide 50 children with MANA packets for four to six weeks.
To find out more information about MANA visit, http://mananutrition.org.
By the way, all proceeds from the Nov. 4 Phi Sigma date auction will benefit MANA.
Both Julia Shrewsbury and Amy Estepp contributed to this story.