I need you to pause for a second with me and visualize what your child’s day would look like if  you didn’t have enough money to send him to school with a packed lunchbox and snack bag or money to buy lunch from school?

It’s a tough thing to even imagine, right? Pausing to think about it usually leads to an overwhelming feeling of gratitude that our kids have their basic needs met, no matter how challenging our day-to-day may be or how much we actually have to work to make sure things like warm and nutritious meals are always available to us. But the reality is that today, according to the World Food Program USA (WFP USA) an estimated 66 million students across the developing world will go to school hungry.

But the reality is that most of us haven’t faced real hunger (if you have and are ready to share, would love to hear your story in the comments below). To those kids, in countries like Kenya, Nigeria and Honduras, going to school on an empty stomach and passing the day without a nutritious meal, means that their nutrition level drops, as does their ability to learn and not drop out of school. It’s even crazier when you realize that to improve their life chances by providing a nutritious meal each day all that’s really needed is .25 cents to fill a cup with a healthy, nutritious school meal and feed a child’s future.

Because school meals can be life-changing for the world’s poorest children and give students an important key to a better future—an education—and give poor families an incentive to send children to school—especially girls who may otherwise not have the opportunity to attend class—I’ve decided to join the WFP USA’s Lunch Money Challenge. Together, we want to raise enough to bring 300,000 school meals to children in Kenya, Niger and Honduras.

So you see up at the beginning of the post where we have the required sponsored post disclosure? Yes, this is a paid campaign, but I’ve decided to donate the full sponsorship of this post to start my own fundraising page for Honduras. The challenge to pack your own lunch meal for five days this week started on Monday, so I’m a bit late to get funds going, so I definitely need your help. Please go here before October 31st to help us feed a dream in Honduras .

By supporting my fundraising efforts to provide school meals to children in Honduras, you’ll help provide enough for 100,000 school meals, to help make sure Honduran kids receive a nutritious meal in school. School meals are the primary safety net to reach children who need help in Honduras. Kids who are most in need have an even harder time now due to droughts in parts of the country—and not getting the nutritious food they need to grow and learn.

The funds raised will help WFP  focus on the areas with the greatest needs and hardest to reach in Honduras, working with the government to reach 86% of all primary schools with WFP focusing on reaching the areas with the greatest need. Many students in Honduras get school meals through the home-grown school feeding program, with 93% of the ingredients coming from local farmers and businesses, feeding minds and growing the local economy.

Ready to pack your lunch for the next few days and donate that amount for school meals in Honduras? For less of the price of a coffee ($1.50), you could feed a student for a week. For $50, an entire school year. How you will feel? ¡No tiene precio!

Follow: #feedadream and WFP USA Twitter: @WFPUSA

Disclosure: This post is part of a campaign with The Mission List and the World Food Program USA. All opinions are my own.

How many of you held a cup this morning? How often do you think about what you pour into that cup?

For me, a cup symbolizes the joy of a hot cafecito con leche to start my day. It’s one of the few rituals I always adhere to in my day. I’m also picky about my cups. I like them more like mugs than a standard cup because I love feeling the weight in my hands and the warmth of the liquid in it.

I have a new cup. It’s red and it feels so huge and so small at the same time. What fills it isn’t my glorious coffee, but the promise of relieving the pain of hunger for a child. This red cup I now fill with my daughter with any change we find in our pockets, my handbag, around the house or get from a bill is a symbol of hope.

The World Food Program USA uses these red cups to feed a child a healthy, nutritious school meal.  Just 25 cents fills a red cup just like the one I have with porridge, rice or beans and gives girls a monthly ration to take home.

Through their school meals program the WFP reaches 20 million school children in 75 countries each year. It’s important to feed these children who would otherwise attend school in an empty stomach to give them a chance at academic success and life fulfillment.  A guaranteed nutritious meal served each day is the greatest incentive for families to send and keep kids in school — particularly girls —giving these kids a chance to realize their full potential and achieve their dreams.

We’ve decorated and placed our red cup in a place in our house where we can always be reminded of the blessings we have. It’s a constant reminder for my girl to not only request to always have her cup filled, but to fill that of others. A basic lesson of it’s better to give than to receive that really hits the mark. No need for me to nag her with the all-too-common phrase of “Finish your food. There are so many children starving in the world.” Instead, now we can take a small, but decisive action towards actually helping feed these kids.

Once the cup is full, we’ll send it off to the WFP with the satisfaction that many children will be fed out of us intentionally filling our red cup.

Will you fill the red cup with us?

I’m tagging bloggers of the SpanglishBaby familia to join the #fillthecup movement and contribute either a pin, photo, blog post, tweet, Facebook update or whatever feels right about what the red cup symbolizes to them. And then, tag another person to do the same, in effect, a digital passing of the red cup from person to person (using the tag #fillthecup).

Tracy López of Latinaish.com

Vanessa Bell of DeSuMamá.com

Becky Morales of KidWorldCitizen.com

Ericka Sánchez of NibblesandFeasts.com

Mari of InspiredbyFamilyMag.com

Ruby Wright of Growingupblackxican.com

This is also an open invitation for you to join our #FilltheCup movement any way you can! Check out this one-pager with simple ways you can #FilltheCup with us and WFP USA.

The World Food Program USA on Facebook and on Twitter.

Disclosure: I’ve partnered with the Mission List and the World Food Program USA to share about this program.

{Photo credit: WFP/Alejandro Chicheri}