Every day, from 11 h to 14 h, mothers bring their children to our center in the Baseco slum. More than 600 children are registered for the daily lunch program where they get a healthy meal with all the vital nutritions. The children eat in three shifts at 11 h, 12 h and 13h. Food as such is not a problem in Baseco, near Manila's old town center. But the quality is. Most families can afford a bag of rice. But vegetables and meats are rare. The slum children thus don't get the quality food they need. It is not only noticeable in their physical development, it is also visible at school. Children often do not have the energy to follow the classes, get unruly and drop out. Poor food condems them to a life in poverty. The 600 plus meals are prepared by our kitchen brigade, the 30 volunteer mothers whom we tought to cook and prepare simple, but healthy meals. Given budget constrains, we can not pay them a lot. But the volunteer mothers are happy with the USD 1 per day they get. Our Food program is now 20 years old and often the first contact to enlist children in the Chalice educational program. A year ago, the Food program moved from the Centro Salvador in Tondo to Baseco. With the development of the new container port, more jobs came to Tondo - even poor families can now afford meats and vegetable. Rather than handing out food, we now teach mothers how to shop and cook. In terms of economic development, Baseco lags Tondo by about 20 years. We will maintain the Food program as long as needed but hope that one day we can stop it too and move our efforts to education and health care. For the time being, our kids come happily every day to our Baseco Center. Their noise and screams during lunch time is endeaering.