NORTH KINGSTOWN – At least 9,000 children in South Sudan will receive life-saving nutrition thanks to a new partnership between Edesia Inc., Ocean State Job Lot and Provision Ministry.
Spearheaded by Provision Ministry, the R.I. State Police will escort a convoy of seven trucks on Tuesday to deliver 95 pallets, 285,000 pounds, of Edesia's Plumpy'Nut product from Job Lot's distribution center in North Kingstown to the Port of Newark in New Jersey.
World Vision, one of the world’s largest humanitarian relief agencies, will fund the ocean freight to South Sudan, and will be responsible for distributing the Plumpy’Nut to children on ground upon the freight's arrival.
Edesia President and founder Navyn Salem said that it will take upward of six weeks for the freight to reach South Sudan, but it will take more time to transport the food inland.
The partnership represents a swift, Rhode Island-driven effort to address a growing global crisis. UNICEF expects 1.6 million children in South Sudan to suffer from acute malnutrition in 2025.
Provision Ministry, a U.S.-based nonprofit that connects corporate donors with community organizations by distributing essential goods like food to vulnerable populations at no cost, was instrumental in putting the partnership together, Salem said.
"This has the potential to be a great partnership," she said. "Having this kind of consortium is completely new for us, but we had to be innovative this past six months as we continue to wait for directions from the federal government."
Since February, more than 150,000 cartons of Edesia's life-saving food product
have been stockpiled in the Rhode Island nonprofit's warehouse after the federal government paused new
U.S. Agency for International Development orders in late January and through early February, with stop‑work and contract terminations imposed and later rescinded by Feb. 6.
However those cartons can't be sold because they are contracted for USAID. Production of this week's shipment of Plumpy'Nut was funded by Edesia's
"Children Can't Wait" campaign, which aims to raise $3.5 million, matched dollar-for-dollar, to directly fund critical production for 297,000 children in crisis-affected countries.
In March, Edesia was forced to lay off
16 workers, accounting for about 10% of its staff, due to a lack of USAID payments.
Edesia, a leading producer of ready-to-use foods for malnourished children, has supplied life-saving nutrition to 65 countries over the past 15 years, reaching more than 26 million children through partners like UNICEF and the World Food Programme.
Matthew McNulty is a PBN staff writer. He can be reached at McNulty@PBN.com or on X at @MattMcNultyNYC.
