Gallatin Student Serves Children of South Africa
Nearly two years ago, a group of students at the Meadowlands Secondary School in Soweto, Johannesburg sat outside under a tree each day during their lunch hour—but they did not eat. These children didn’t have any food and preferred not to watch the others eating. At Lesedi Secondary School in Pretoria, students often fainted from sheer lack of sustenance during the course of a regular school day. Today children in both of these schools, and others in South Africa, receive nutritious lunches daily—thanks to the work of Gallatin junior Topaz Page-Green (BA ’07) and the organization she founded in May of 2004: The Lunchbox Fund.
The Lunchbox Fund’s aim is to help African communities break the cycles of hunger and poverty by providing food and support to disadvantaged pre- and secondary-school children who would otherwise go without sustenance for indefinite periods of time. These children come from very poor socioeconomic backgrounds and are often AIDS orphans. For many, the lunch they now receive at school is their only meal of the day.
A native of South Africa, Green left the country when she was 19, first to pursue modeling in London and then in New York, where she also began attending Gallatin. Green’s impetus for creating The Lunchbox Fund came during a trip to her homeland, when she learned about the students at the Meadowlands School. After visiting with them, she felt what she describes as “a sense of duty to do 'right' and an active desire to be an agent of social change.”
“I have always felt a sense of responsibility,” Green recounts, “to undo what generations before me have done….It became exceptionally clear that by creating aid for these kids, the outcome could be three or more fold. On a basic human level, the children would have food in their bellies. On a more subtle level they would feel cared for…and therefore [be] able to make the most out of their education.”
Green quickly established the nonprofit organization, and initial fundraising efforts were made with the goal of providing lunches for disadvantaged children at one school, which costs approximately $5,000 a year. However, since Green had spent years working as a model, she realized she could use her connection to the celebrity world to bring in more donations. In October of 2005, in conjunction with the Food Bank of New York, The Lunchbox Fund had its first large-scale fundraising event, at which celebrity-designed and decorated lunchboxes were unveiled and auctioned off for a total sum of $56,000. More than 100 lunchboxes were then placed on eBay for internet auctions that raised additional funds; Green estimates that the entire auction initiative raised $120,000. (Some of the celebrities who designed lunchboxes include Clint Eastwood, Halle Berry, Bono, Bill Clinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, Naomi Campbell, Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs, and Ben Affleck.) Green also recently partnered with Rotary International, which matches the funds raised by The Lunchbox Fund by 50 percent. The Fund has fed needy children at four schools in Soweto and Pretoria this year, and with Rotary International overseeing resource distribution on the ground level, Green is already making plans to expand the effort to other parts of South Africa.
Meanwhile, she still works full-time as a model while also managing her studies as an undergraduate student on the Dean’s List at Gallatin. With a concentration focusing on psychology, mysticism, and human rights, her work with The Lunchbox Fund is a true example of experiential learning, and she has completed an independent study on the topic. She felt inspired by a class in human rights taught by Gallatin Professor Asale Angel-Ajani, and she has also taken classes on the fundamentals of nonprofit management at NYU’s Wagner School of Public Service.
Her organization is not yet two years old, but Green has grand plans for its future. She hopes to host another fundraising event next year and to develop corporate sponsorships. Eventually, she’d like to create a production line out of South Africa, which would create employment opportunities and further support The Lunchbox Fund’s children. She intends to partner with ecologically- and socially-oriented companies to help achieve these goals. To learn more or to make a donation, visit www.thelunchboxfund.org.