MFK in the News
Malnourished children in Haiti
Rock Hopper TV
11-22-2011
Taken over six weeks, the course helps children to gain 4 grammes per kilogramme of weight per day.
MFK employees grow, roast and grind the peanuts locally and is hoping to grow enough peanuts in the future to be able to export them to other countries in need.
Helping Haiti's Hungry
August, 18 2011
by: CNN
Gary Strieker reports on Meds & Food for Kids and the fight against malnutrition in Haiti's youngest citizens.
The Miracle of Medika Mamba: Dr. Patricia Wolff uses peanut butter to save thousands of Haitian toddlers from brain damage and death
St. Louis Magazine: Best Doctors 2011, by: Jeannette Copperman
August, 2011
Medika Mamba, by contrast, is powrfully nutritious and easily digested. "Because Medika Mamba is ready to eat, doesn't grow bacteria, and doesn't need refrigeration, the family doesn't need to use up precious charcoal, and the child can eat eight times a day," Wolff says. "Everybody else in Haiti eats once a day because they only build a fire once."
And will a child eat Medika Mamba eight times a day? "O yeah-they love it!" Wolff says, her face breaking into a smile. "It tastes like the inside of a Reese's!"
Read More: Dr.Wolff and the Miracle of Medika Mamba
Urban Land Institute Gift Helps U.S. Nonprofit Boost Food Production in Haiti
Urban Land Institute, by: Patrick L. Phillips Chief Executive Officer, Urban Land Institute
July 13, 2011
In January 2010, in the aftermath of a devastating earthquake in Haiti, I called upon ULI members to give generously to first responders such as the Red Cross, World Vision, International Relief and Development, the various United Nations aid agencies, and the many other NGOs providing immediate relief.
Since then, we’ve continued to look for ways ULI can support the longer-term needs of Haiti. To that end, the ULI Foundation recently made a generous donation to Meds and Food for Kids, a US-based non-profit established in 2003 with the mission to prevent and treat malnutrition in Haiti through the local production and distribution of a nutritious food for children.
Read More: Generous donation to Meds and Food for Kids
Meds & Food seeks $600,000 for Haitian factory
St. Louis Buisness Journal
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Meds & Food for Kids a St. Louis-based nonprofit that produces and distributes foods to malnourished children in Haiti, said it needs to raise $600,000 in the next six months in order to build a much-needed new factory there this year. The planned new, larger factory would be more efficient and enable production to be increased tenfold, to treat 80,000 children annually, Meds & Food for Kids officials said.
Below is a rendering provided by Burns & McDonnell of the factory.
Read more: Meds & Food seeks $600,000 for Haitian factory | St. Louis Business Journal
An Enduring Commitment to Haiti
University of Minnesota Almuni Spotlight
April 25, 2011
While short-term relief has its place, Patricia Wolff, M.D., is partial to the permanent fix. Wolff, a pediatrician, 1972 Medical School alumna, and founder of the nonprofit Meds & Food for Kids, is focused on combating malnutrition in Haiti — starting with its root causes.
Read more: An enduring commitment to Haiti
Dr. Patricia Wolff closing practice to focus on her other passion
www.ksdk.com
March 25, 2011
A local pediatrician is closing her practice to focus full-time on her other passion -- Haiti. Dr. Patricia Wolff is telling her long time patients that she only has six more days in her St. Louis office. For the past eight years she has split time between her practice and a foundation she started in Northern Haiti. Meds and Food for Kids uses the peanuts and labor of locals to make a highly enriched peanut butter for malnourished children.
Read more and Watch: Dr. Patricia Wolff closing practice to focus on her other passion
Dr. Pat Wolff to Leave St. Louis Practice to Concentrate on Haiti, Peanut Butter
River Front Times, by: Aimee Levitt
March 25, 2011
It's been a mystery to many how Dr. Patricia Wolff manages to balance running Meds & Food for Kids (MFK), an organization that produces and distributes nutrient-laden peanut butter to malnourished children in Haiti, with her own private pediatrics practice here in St. Louis. On June 30, though, Wolff's juggling exhibition will come to an end. Wolff will be folding up her practice at Forest Park Pediatrics and devoting herself to MFK full-time.
Read More: Dr. Pat Wolff to Leave St. Louis Practice to Concentrate on Haiti, Peanut Butter
Dr. Patricia Wolff leaving private practice to donate time to Haiti project
STLTODAY.COM, by: Deb Peterson
March, 23 2011
Dr.Patricia Wolff, a St. Louis pediatrician and founder of Meds & Foods for Kids, will be leaving her private practice to devote her time to the effort to provide food for malnourished children in Haiti. Wolff is telling her patients at Forest Park Pediatrics that she is leaving the practice on June 30. She founded the nonprofit in 2003 and has split her time between her practice and the organization since then. She began volunteering in Haiti in 1988.
Read More: NOT JUST PEANUTS
Band sealer expands lifeline for Haitian kids
Published in Packaging World Magazine, by: Anne Marie Mohan
February 2011, p. 34
Since 2003, packaging has been an integral component of a program developed in Haiti by Dr. Patricia Wolff, professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Washington University's School of Medicine, to combat childhood malnutrition. Meds & Food for Kids (MFK), a registered U.S. nonprofit and a registered NGO in Haiti, develops, produces, and distributes a shelf-stable Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) in standup pouches that offer superior barrier properties and convenience.
Read More: Band sealer expands lifeline for Haitian kids
The Global Voice With Susan Piontek
January, 26 2011
This week on "The Global Voice" Susan Piontek will be speaking live with Tom Stehl, who has just returned from Haiti, and Steve Taviner, Director of Development, who spent 14 months in Haiti. They will be updating us on all the wonderful work they are doing alongside "Meds and Food for Kids" founder Dr. Patricia Wolff.
Listen Here: The Global Voice
Haiti, one year later: St. Louis-based groups are growing, helping more (Part 2)
St. Louis Beacon, by: Patricia Rice
January, 12 2011
The poorest nation in the Western hemisphere must not continue as a charity case, St. Louis volunteers said. Most Haitians don’t want to stand in line for help but to learn, work and help themselves, the volunteers say. After two decades of helping in Haiti, St. Louis pediatrician and Washington University medical professor Dr. Patricia Wolff sees new hope, even though the earthquake stalled her food production expansion plans.
Read More: Hati, One Year Later
Local Product Global Cause
The Providence Phoenix
October 6, 2010
The Phoenix Providence describes Edesia's effort to produce and distribute Plumpy'nut globally to end malnutrition and stimulate local development. Steve Taviner, Meds & Food for Kids Development Director, is featured in the article about his take on malnutrition, funding and the miracle of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food.
"It saves hundreds and hundreds of lives every day," says Taviner. "You hear parents say all the time after they've used it, 'I thought my child was dead and now he's alive.' "
Read More: Providence - based Edesia wants to end world hunger. But are we willing to pay for it?
Charlie Brennan Interviews Dr. Patricia Wollf
KMOX.COM
October 1, 2010
Charlie talks with Dr. Patricia Wolff, St. Louis pediatrician and founder of the non-profit, Meds and Food for Kids, providing health care and nutrition to the children of Haiti. Listen to Dr. Patricia Wolff's interview with Charlie Brennan from KMOX on Meds & Food For Kids work in Haiti.
Listen Here: MFK Provides Health Care and Nutrition to Children in Haiti
Wolff's Battle In The Business For Hunger
St. Louis Business Journal, by: Trish Miller
September 7, 2010
St. Louis pediatrician Patricia Wolff's struggle to keep her Meds & Food for Kids nonprofit going was mentioned in a New York Times magazine piece Sunday on world hunger. Meds & Food for Kids makes fortified nut paste to help feed starving children in Haiti. Wolff told Times Reporter Andrew Rice that her nonprofit faces steep competition from Nutriset, a private, for-profit French company that makes its own paste called Plumpy’nut, according to Rice’s story, “The Peanut Solution.”
Read more: Wolff's battle in the business for hunger | St. Louis Business Journal
The Peanut Solution
New York Times Magazine, by: Andrew Rice
September 2, 2010
Peanut Butter Miracle
Webster-Kirkwood Times Online, by: Fran Mannino
August 27, 2010
Peanut butter - that everyday staple of children's lunches - is remarkably similar to a product playing a major role in the ongoing battle against global malnutrition. Documenting its use in Haiti are filmmakers Frank Popper of Webster Groves and Lori Dowd, vice president of program development at Avatar Studios in St. Louis. The peanut butter product at the center of the film is known in Haiti as "Medika Mamba" or "peanut butter medicine." It is being produced and distributed in Haiti through the non-profit Meds & Food for Kids (MFK) organization.
Read more: Meds & Food For Kids will be featured in Haiti Documentary
Progress Comes Slowly in Haiti-Part 1
St. Louis Beacon Article, by: Patricia Rice
July 22, 2010
The tragedy in Haiti has steeled the determination of several seasoned St. Louis volunteers to educate, mentor and help more Haitians become self-sustaining. Haitians must serve their own people and run their own hospitals, schools and society, they said in interviews this week. Meds & Foods for Kids, a Haitian hyper-nutritious food factory in Cap Haitien, founded by St. Louisan Dr. Patricia Wolff in 2004, will build a new factory and close its existing one.
Read More: How MFK plans to demonstrate that we don't need to rescue Haiti forever
Haitian Orphans Have Little but One Another
The New York Times, by: Deborah Sontag
July 5, 2010
Deborah Sontag mentions Medika Mamba in her article on Frades, an organization specializing in microloans that has taken responsibility for orphaned/abandoned children after the earthquake. Readers of an earlier NYT article about the orphans generated donations of cash and medika mamba to supply the children with basic needs.
Read More: Medika Mamba's post-earthquake uses
Dr. Peanut: A St. Louis Pediatrician Battles Child Malnutrition in Haiti
River Front Times, by: Aimee Levitt
July 1, 2010
A small room off to the side is bare except for an examination table, a makeshift desk piled with folders and bottles of medicine, and two narrow wooden benches pushed up against the walls. A tall Haitian nurse wearing a white dress and a cap and stockings, straight out of the 1950s, confers with a smaller, wiry American woman over a pair of height-and-weight charts.The Haitian is Marie Fleurese Gourges, head nurse of Justinien's infant malnutrition clinic. The American is Dr. Patricia Wolff, a St. Louis pediatrician. Wolff is 62 years old. She has large blue eyes, short blonde hair, a pointed chin — and a commanding presence. As her friend Mary McElwain puts it: "Pat is a person who feels people should listen to her."
Read More: Dr. Peanut
