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Tribune Report
Published at 06:24 pm September 23rd, 2015

Dhaka’s premium online grocery store Direct Fresh has announced its agreement to deliver food at cost to Thrive, a non-profit volunteer-run organisation, and to make it easy for its customers to donate to Thrive at checkout.

Thrive and Direct Fresh have partnered to provide nutritious meals to children living in the slums of Dhaka, said Thrive President Priscilla Heffelfinger.

The commitment made by Direct Fresh to Thrive includes preparing and delivering to them foods such as eggs, carrots, vegetables, seasonal fruit, milk, and other healthy items.

This will result in cost savings for Thrive, and because Direct Fresh has agreed to deliver the food directly to Thrive’s volunteers, it will save the volunteers the trouble of navigating the capital city’s notorious traffic to travel to the market to obtain food.

Direct Fresh is also encouraging its customers to donate to Thrive. Each time customers of Direct Fresh checkout from the online grocery store, they will be prompted with a request to make a donation to Thrive.

“This partnership makes perfect sense,” said Heffelfinger.  “Thrive’s mission to feed children nutritious meals will greatly benefit from Direct Fresh’s expertise in food delivery and their focus on premium, healthy produce.”

Direct Fresh founder and CEO Mishal Karim said, “Our company is committed to charitable work in Bangladesh.  When we saw the great work that Thrive was doing to feed some of the most vulnerable children in Dhaka, we knew we could help them.  It has been a great partnership that we hope continues well into the future.”

Thrive is a non-profit organisation that connects global donors and local volunteers to schoolchildren living in Dhaka by providing nutritious food and promoting healthy habits for a chance at a better life.

The non-profit delivers more than 13,000 healthy meals a month to slum schools in the capital city, while teaching proper hygiene habits to prevent deadly water-borne illnesses.

The meals, which cost nearly Tk25-Tk35 per child, include eggs, bananas, peanuts, seasonal fruits and/or vegetables, and a glass of milk.