I used to be chronically online for different reasons.
For outfit inspo. For new recipes.
For fashion drops and cozy winter content.
I’m still chronically online now, just in a very different way.
Now when I open my phone, I don’t see trends. I see Gaza.
And yesterday, I saw something I can’t stop thinking about.
A mother sat on the floor with a small handful of rice in her palm.
Not a bowl. Not a plate. Just a handful.
She slowly separated the grains into three tiny portions for her children.
One for each child. Carefully. Quietly. As if each grain mattered, because it did.
There wasn’t enough to make a full meal.
It wasn’t even enough to make them feel full.
And she didn’t take a single grain for herself.
She watched her children eat while her own hunger waited.
That handful of rice was all they had for days.
While I’m wrapped in warmth. While my heater runs nonstop.
While food sits in my kitchen without a second thought.
Somewhere in Gaza, a mother is counting grains to keep her children alive.
This is what hunger looks like now. Not empty cupboards but empty hands.
Not skipped snacks but mothers going without so their babies can eat something.
And in this freezing cold, hunger hurts even more.
Cold bellies. Weak bodies. Children trying to sleep while their stomachs ache.
But here’s the truth I keep holding onto:
It doesn’t have to be this way.
You can be the reason that mother doesn’t have to ration rice.
You can be the reason her children eat a full warm meal today.
You can be the warmth they need most in this unbearable cold.
With your help and determination, we’re delivering 1,000 hot meals in Gaza every day. That’s 1,000 mothers like her being fed, and their children too.
Because of people like you, handfuls no longer have to be counted. Hunger can be turned into nourishment.
In a world where mothers are counting grains of rice, let us be the reason they don’t have to anymore. Let us be the warmth. Let us be hope today.
With so much love and urgency,
Hafsa
