Every day our people make a difference while fulfilling our purpose to help keep communities healthy, fed, clean, and safe. As a proud partner with Vitamin Angels, we’re also helping improve nutrition from the start by reaching at-risk pregnant women and young children with life-changing vitamins across the US, Canada, and around the world.

Putting this vital work into perspective, Angela Kelly documents her experience observing vitamin distribution, including the very profound and humbling realization that access to essential nutrition is often a gift rather than a given.  

Read on to find out how Angela was inspired to contribute to the promise of “muy fuerte” to the woman and children of the Sacred Valley in Peru.

Our group came from across the US – flying into Lima, Peru, and staying the night before flying into Cusco on a small propeller plane. We stayed in Cusco but took a harrowing 2-3 hour journey each day to visit the remote villages that our hosts, a local NGO group, travel to on a bi-weekly basis to do vitamin distributions, health check-ups, and wellness care for the village. The drive through the Sacred Valley is beautiful but very high in elevation. The soil is rocky but perfect for potato farming. There are terraced hillsides everywhere with potato plants budding through the ground. Potatoes are the main food source for the Peruvian people in the Sacred Valley. Farming is the staple of living there. There are no jobs or offices to report to: you exist simply on the land that you live on. There are no cars or donkeys for transportation. Water is not potable. If medical assistance is necessary, the villagers must walk to Cusco, often taking as long as 2-4 days to journey down the treacherous mountainside. 

Our first drive to the Sacred Valley left our old Toyota mini-van stuck in the mud on the rutted single-lane dirt road. There was a recent rain, and the van tires were sucked into the mud unable to move forward. We piled out of the van to lessen the weight and push the van to nudge it forward out of the muck. We had trophies of our efforts with mud-splattered faces and clothes. And this was Day 1. Just as we sat down in the van again to continue our journey a woman ran down the hill toward us, waving her arms frantically. Our driver put the van back into park and the local NGO nurses went to meet the woman to see how they could assist. Once the woman caught her breath, she untied the satchel that was strapped to her back. Within this carefully tied fabric lay a tiny baby that needed medical assistance. She had been walking down the mountain to find someone who could assist her with her child’s fever. When she saw the van, (and because there are so few cars that travel this pothole-pocked road) this mother knew there were likely nurses on board who could assist her with her baby’s fever. The majority of cars that travel this road are those of the NGO nurses and their drivers. 

After the NGO Nurses administered medical care to her tiny baby, the mother asked for one other thing: “la vitamina, la vitamina.” She received a bottle of vitamins that were so essential to her health and the health of her baby.

We had the opportunity to meet the children and mothers who were so grateful for the vitamins and minerals and hear about what the distribution means to them. Over and over we saw mothers fill with tears as they spoke of no longer having to worry about their newborns surviving past a few days of birth. Their babies now were born at a healthy birth weight. Access to the vitamins was life-changing to these villages located high in the Andes. Nothing had ever given the solace to these dedicated mothers like seeing their children healthy had. 

One generous family invited us for dinner after we had spent the day in the village observing vitamin distributions. The mother walked us to her home and happily invited us inside. The house itself was a simple 20-by-20-foot structure made from mud and straw “bricks” that had been carefully assembled to create the home she loved. A single pot-bellied stove was in one corner of the structure with assorted pots laying near creating her kitchen.