Did you know that while the average price of one Starbucks drink is $2.75, the cost of one World Food Programme (WFP) meal is only 50 cents? That means the cost of a cappuccino could provide five meals to a hungry child.
These 14 surprising facts will definitely make you think about hunger differently whether you’re ordering a coffee, tuning into NBA games or logging onto Netflix.
THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY
1) This year, the NBA averaged 1.34M viewers per game. That is almost the exact number of pregnant or breastfeeding women in Yemen (1.2M) who are severely malnourished this year.
2) On average, Americans spend $11.4 billion on box office hits. That’s more than twice as much money as WFP needs to avert famine in 2021. Popcorn, anyone?
3) In the first three months of 2021, Netflix had over 74 million American and Canadian subscribers. For every one of those Netflix subscribers, nine other people in the world are hungry.
4) The price of a 2021 Coachella ticket is $449 for general admission. (Yes…you’re reading that right.) For $449, WFP could feed six families, each with five people, for a month.
5) On average, a one-day ticket to Disneyland is $135. For $135, WFP could deliver 270 meals to desperately hungry people in the world’s worst crisis zones.
WHO’S READY TO TRAVEL?
6) On any given day, WFP has more trucks on the ground than Chicago O’Hare has planes in the air. WFP’s food assistance fleet includes 5,600 trucks, 100 aircraft and 30 ships.
7) In 2020, despite the pandemic, approximately 324 million travelers passed a TSA checkpoint in American airports. That means every time someone checked in at TSA, two people went to bed hungry that night.
8) A domestic plane ticket will set you back about $359. That would just about cover the cost of one plate of food in South Sudan ($329.82). Devastated by conflict, flooding and inflation, South Sudan has seen food prices skyrocket in the last year. Could you afford that?
9) The average amount of money spent in the United States on a single day in 2019 on food services, lodging, transportation, entertainment and retail shopping was $3.1 billion. That would more than cover WFP’s entire funding need to prevent famine in Yemen, which is $1.9 billion this year.
FOOD: CHECK PLEASE!
10) The average American spends $1,200 on fast food per year. For $1,200 WFP could deliver three nutritious, healthy meals to 800 new mothers.
11) We all ordered a lot of takeout and delivery last year. So much, in fact, that the money spent at restaurants in 2020 would cover WFP’s funding needs for this year nearly 45 times over. WFP urgently needs $15 billion to pay for its work in 2021. American restaurant sales generated $659 billion in 2020, despite many restaurants closing in-person dining or lowering capacity levels to accommodate social distancing measures.
12) In the United States, the average price of a Starbucks drink is $2.75. For comparison, the price of one WFP meal is only 50 cents.
13) In California, people spend about $3,295 per year on dining out. A donation of that amount to World Food Program USA could help WFP provide meals to 6,950 refugees in need.
14) Recently, Americans have spent roughly $22 billion dollars on chocolate every year. That would cover all of WFP’s funding needs through 2021 and there would still be $7 billion left over. Wouldn’t that be sweet?
This summer, we should certainly enjoy our freedoms after a year of lockdown. But World Food Program USA is also calling attention to the looming threat of famine and the urgent need to send lifesaving food to the world’s hungriest people. We hope you will too.
To learn more and see how you can help, visit our famine hub follow us on Twitter to help #FightFamine
