Feed a Family in Gaza
$50 is a month of food for a family of six. $10 is hot meals today.
Food is the need partner field teams are asked about more than anything else, and it is the one where the relationship between a donation and a result is closest to direct. A monthly parcel for a family of six costs $50. A day of hot meals for a family costs $10.
Those figures include getting the food to the household, not just buying it — which is why they may look higher than numbers you have seen elsewhere.
This appeal funds both: staple parcels that last a family a month, and community kitchens serving cooked meals to people with no way to cook.
Parcels and hot meals do different jobs
A food parcel is for a household that can still cook — it has a stove, some fuel, and somewhere to store dry goods. It lasts a month and costs less per meal than anything else we do.
A community kitchen is for the households that cannot: displaced families in tents with no fuel, no pots and nowhere to keep food. The meals cost more per person and they are the only option for the people who need them most.
We fund both because the population needs both, and the mix shifts week to week with fuel availability.
- $10 — hot meals for one family for a day
- $50 — a full monthly food parcel for a family of six
- $120 — infant nutrition for three babies for a month
- $600 — a community kitchen running for a full day, serving hundreds
What is in a monthly parcel
Built around staples that keep without refrigeration and cook with minimal fuel, which is the binding constraint people outside Gaza tend not to think about:
- Flour, rice and pasta as the calorie base
- Lentils, chickpeas and beans for protein that stores
- Cooking oil, salt, sugar and tea
- Tinned fish or meat where supply allows
- Tomato paste and preserved vegetables
Why the price is not fixed
In a functioning market the cost of staples drifts. In Gaza it lurches — when crossings restrict, local prices for the same goods can multiply within days, then fall back when supply arrives. Any charity quoting one fixed price all year is either averaging heavily or not buying recently.
We buy locally whenever local supply exists. It is faster, it skips the crossing, and it puts money into the hands of traders and bakers who are themselves trying to survive.
Why covering several months changes the arithmetic
A $50 gift buys one parcel. A gift that covers three or six months buys something different in kind: the ability to promise a household in advance, place bulk orders at better prices, and hold stock before a shortage instead of after it.
Emergency food response will always be partly reactive. Predictable income is the only thing that makes any of it proactive.
A family does not eat a procurement estimate. What matters is whether the parcel is at the door, and whether there is another one next month.