Finding Freedom Through Friendship

Our most recent blog post, featuring FFF's newest addition to our Widow Program.

When Food Is Unaffordable: The Growing Crisis of Hunger - For families living in poverty, there is almost no room in the household budget for prices to rise. When the cost of basic foods increases, there is no discretionary spending to eliminate. Instead, families eat less, parents skip meals, children receive smaller portions, and nutritious foods are rep...

https://www.manuels.com/about
Manuel’s Restaurant in Austin, Texas, is known for its outstanding Mexican cuisine, but what makes the restaurant truly special extends far beyond the food. Owners Greg Koury and Jennifer McNevin believe deeply in the importance of community and in using their success to make life better for others.

Greg and Jennifer are passionate about serving delicious, thoughtfully prepared food made with locally sourced ingredients. Their commitment to creating healthy communities reaches well beyond the walls of their restaurant. For more than a decade, they have generously shared their time, resources, and talents to support the work of a multitude of charities, including Finding Freedom through Friendship (FFF).

Through fundraising events at Manuel’s and their remarkable personal commitment to our mission, Greg and Jennifer have helped raise more than $60,000 for FFF. Those funds have translated into something greater than a dollar amount: education for children, assistance for widows and families living in poverty, access to healthcare, and opportunities for women to build more secure and independent futures in six different countries.

This altruistic couple reminds us that a restaurant can be much more than a place to share a meal. It can be a gathering place where generosity is nurtured, community is strengthened, and lives thousands of miles away can be changed. For more than ten years, Greg and Jennifer have been an important part of the FFF family. Their generosity has made a lasting difference in the lives of the people we serve.

https://www.freedomthroughfriendship.org/from-surviving-to-thriving-transformation-through-opportunity/
Nana was determined to change the trajectory of her family's financial distress. Our Egyptian Women's Development Center classes and a micro loan allowed her to do just that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51NQfzKrLp8
During the 2025 to 2026 academic year, all 50 of our Egyptian Wings of Freedom tutoring center students passed the mandatory national end-of-year exams.

That is a 100% pass rate!

Even more remarkable, all five of our ninth-grade graduates have enrolled in secondary or technical school; That is, they have chosen to continue their education.
In Egypt, the ninth-grade exam, known as Preparatory 3, is a national exam that determines whether a student can continue to secondary school.

The attached document explains why this exam is so important.
In communities like El Khosous, roughly one in three students drops out of school.

For all five of our graduates to pass the exam and continue their education is a meaningful achievement.

It is exactly the kind of outcome that reminds us why this work matters.

Marvy Hany - WOF Graduate (El Khosous, Egypt) A Different Kind of Turning PointIn the United States, a student m...

Transformations for Women and Children Are In Full Bloom: FFF This Summer - https://mailchi.mp/freedomthroughfriendship/honoring-mothers-who-rise-against-the-odds-13853617

This precious newborn is one of more than 1,000 patients who received compassionate medical care through Finding Freedom Through Friendship's health clinics in Egypt last year. For families living in poverty, even routine medical care during pregnancy and childbirth can be financially out of reach. Without access to affordable healthcare, preventable illnesses can become life-threatening, and newborns often miss the critical care they need during their first days of life.

In many of Egypt's underserved communities, families must choose between paying for food, rent, or a visit to the doctor. Your generosity helps remove that impossible choice. Through our clinics, mothers receive prenatal care, babies receive life-saving examinations and treatment, children are cared for when they are sick, and families leave with the medications and hope they need.

Every patient we serve represents more than a medical visit, they represent a healthier future, a stronger family, and the compassion made possible by FFF supporters.

Every day, thousands of women in rural Guatemala prepare meals over open wood-burning stoves inside their homes. What appears to be a simple way to cook is actually one of the greatest health hazards they face.

The smoke from traditional wood stoves fills homes with dangerous pollutants that can cause chronic lung disease, asthma, pneumonia, eye irritation, and even increase the risk of heart disease. Women and young children, who spend the most time near the cooking fire, are the ones most affected. In many homes, there is little ventilation, so families breathe smoke for hours every day. Every time our FFF team visits a home with one of these stoves, we carry the smoke in our clothing for the remainder of the day.

Antonia, pictured here, is one of the widows in Finding Freedom Through Friendship's Widows Program. Like many women in her village, she has spent years cooking over an open fire in a smoke-filled kitchen.

Over the years, Finding Freedom Through Friendship (FFF) has replaced dozens of these traditional stoves with fuel-efficient stoves that dramatically reduce indoor smoke, use far less firewood, and make cooking safer and faster. These improved stoves not only protect the health of mothers and children but also reduce the time spent gathering firewood and lessen the impact on the surrounding environment.

A stove may seem like a simple gift, but to a Guatemalan family, it can mean cleaner air, healthier lungs, safer kitchens, and a better quality of life.

Thank you to every donor who has helped make these life-changing improvements possible.

https://givebutter.com/Food_Soap_and_Hope_in_the_Congo

At Finding Freedom Through Friendship, we believe no mother should have to choose between feeding her children and protecting them from Ebola. That's why we partnered with our sister organization, Helping Hands for Survivors, to provide food and lifesaving soap to vulnerable women and children in eastern Congo.

Two weeks ago we delivered donated food supplies and soap to 170 citizens facing severe hunger. The list of people waiting for our next distribution is long.

Together, we're bringing hope where fear and hunger have taken hold. Your gift will help families stay nourished, reduce the spread of Ebola, and remind them they are not facing this crisis alone.