Five hundred children in Ghana became healthier last year with the help of the natural products industry-supported Vitamin Angel Alliance.

A year ago, Kelly Darnell, a program officer with Direct Relief, told Vitamin Angel's President Howard Schiffer that children in the Northern Volta region of Ghana were dying from severe anemia; iron-enriched children's vitamins could save lives.

Schiffer made an appeal to the natural products industry and Now Foods Inc. and Fruitful Yield owner Al Powers at provided a year's supply of vitamins for 500 children.

Sending vitamins to Ghana is just a small part of Vitamin Angels' work. The nonprofit, nonsectarian organization has shipped 165 donations with a wholesale value of almost $3 million to 38 countries in the last few years. And Schiffer is grateful for the industry's support.

"I want to tell people what a difference they're making, to show them, and let them really feel, what a big deal [their donations are]," Schiffer said. "When I got this picture I thought, 'Oh, this is it.' You gave, and you get to see these kids with bottles of vitamins on their heads—children in Ghana, who because of you, are standing there and will be healthy for the next year because some of you called up Vitamin Angels and said, 'Yes, We'll do that. We want to do that.'

"What could be more satisfying than to see those kids?" Schiffer asked about the photo that appears on this page.

Schiffer's work is far from done. He said a recent World Health Organization report that analyzed the approximate 56 million deaths that occur each year found that 40 percent are attributed to 10 leading health risks.

"If you do the math on that, the 10 leading health risks are responsible for somewhere between 22 [million] or 23.6 million deaths a year," he said. "No. 1—above AIDS, above arteriosclerosis, above heart disease—is lack of nutrition."

Schiffer called VAA the humanitarian arm of the health foods industry and said it should remind industry members that they started their business to make the world a healthier place.

"The truth is that's what we're doing, unequivocally. If we have enough vitamin C, we will prevent hundreds of thousands of cases of scurvy this year for people in refugee camps," he said. "We know that if we have enough vitamin A, we will prevent hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of cases of childhood blindness; if we have enough vitamin D and calcium, we will prevent rickets, which is rampant in Nepal."

Requests for assistance keep coming in. "But requests for vitamins outstrip our supplies by so much," Schiffer said.

Right now Schiffer has an urgent request for multiple vitamins and children's chewables to send to starving people in Malawi—an African nation devastated by an AIDS epidemic.

If you'd like to learn more about Vitamin Angel Alliance, visit www.vitaminangelalliance.com or send an e-mail to info@vitaminangel.org to get its electronic newsletter.

Natural Foods Merchandiser volume XXIV/number 2/p. 16