Named after a sentence Jesus said to His disciples.

In 2008, Roland and his late wife Theresa Poirier joined a small group at Trinity Bible Church in Osgoode, Ontario. The conversation that mattered came from Luke 9, the moment Jesus turned to his disciples in front of a hungry crowd and said “you give them something to eat.” The group decided to act on it.

A mutual friend introduced the Poiriers to Pastor Silas Owiti-Oduor, originally from a Kenyan village called Yogo. Silas described what was happening at home: about half the children in his community were dying of water-borne disease, malnutrition, and AIDS. Roland flew to Kenya later that year with a small team.

The team came back with land purchased for a community farm, four local leaders ready to run it, and a phrase Roland hasn’t stopped repeating: you feed them, we help you do it. The mission began with nourishing the soil. Eighteen years later, two schools are running, farms are feeding the students, clean water flows in three villages, and medical, dental, and vision care is part of every mission trip.

You Feed Them is pursuing US 501(c)(3) charitable status, applied for in early 2026 under the religious and education categories. For our work in Kenya and Tanzania, we partner with existing registered charities rather than duplicating infrastructure abroad, which keeps us lean and routes Canadian tax-receipted donations through partners who specialize in that work.

We do not take salaries from program funds. Travel and overhead are covered separately through direct partnerships and personal contribution. When you give to Partners in Hope Tanzania through The Great Commission Foundation, 100% of your gift reaches the field.

On the ground, every program is handed to the local community. The community chooses it, owns it, runs it. We visit, we measure, we adjust. We do not run schools, farms, or churches in East Africa. The communities do.