In Arizona, a young girl’s effort to end hunger is part of an important family lesson.
On Sundays, the homeless in downtown Phoenix get a special visit from 12-year-old Khiana Provido, who lives in Gilbert.
Khiana wakes up at 5 a.m. And after brushing her teeth, she immediately gets to work putting together 150 sack lunches in her family’s kitchen. She carefully prepares peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, potato chips, and cookies, eventually putting them all together with bottled water in a brown lunch bag.
She adds hearts and stars to personalize them a little bit.
The hours of preparation are to feed 150 hungry strangers living on the streets.
Khiana says, “I’m sure they don’t have a lot of food, and when they smile it makes me smile.”
The entire cost of this effort is paid for using $400 in scholarship money she gets each month as the reigning National American Miss Arizona Preteen.
Her parents, John and Ched Cruz, couldn’t be more proud because the cause is personal.
John grew up poor and hungry in the Philippines. Now in the US, the couple is raising Khiana with an important lesson — “It doesn’t matter how old you are, it doesn’t take much to help out.”
It’s a lesson Khiana takes to heart and to the downtown Phoenix streets as she passes out her carefully-prepared lunches.
Khiana hopes to compete for Miss America and Miss Philippines one day with the same platform of ending hunger.