Girls are vulnerable to being married at a young age when families cannot afford to buy food and children do not go to school. For $60 a month an entire family can be fed. Food4School provides needy Afghan families with money for food in exchange for sending their children to school. One of the conditions for receiving the funds is that the girls as well as the boys remain in school. Marilyn Mosley Gordainier, the founder, shares the story behind Food4School.

It has been my life mission and work to start schools. The most long lasting of all the schools I’ve started is the Laurel Springs School. It began in 1991, with 72 students, and it was the first time that there was an online home-schooling option in the US. There was a need for alternative education that was personalized and allowed children to express their feelings and become great citizens in the future. There weren’t many schools in the US that offered that opportunity for children.

In 1994, following a massive earthquake in Los Angeles, many libraries and schools were closed. Students were interrupted in completing their critical thinking and research assignments. They needed to have the right resources to support their endeavors, and with the libraries closed, it was difficult to access information. We decided to search online for information. We found 50,000 links giving information justabout the topic of Romania. We were excited and thought, “Online education — what a great idea!” We had no idea that this was the beginning of a new wave in education – we were just trying to respondto a need. We made it into the news media, and a lot of people started talking about what we had pioneered – online education.Today, Laurel Springs enrolls about 4,900 children a year. We have established ourselves as the primary education program for children who want to find their inner strengths, learn creatively, and learn at their own pace.

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