Class participants were encouraged to shake off their calories in Zumba classes worldwide, with Zumba donating the equivalent of the average amount of calories burned per class (750 calories) to the United Nations World Food Programme. So when a participant ‘burns’ the equivalent of a meal, Zumba buys one meal. During the three-month campaign, Zumba Fitness is challenging the world to donate 2.6 billion calories that will equate to 3.5 million meals (based on the typical meal size) toward hunger-relief efforts.

Objectives

Our target is to donate 3.5 million meals which would mean a maximum financial commitment payable to the World Food Programme of $1 million (USD).

Why is this project important?

Hunger is one of the world’s greatest solvable problems. While many fight to burn calories, others suffer from hunger. The Zumba network is in a unique position to tip the scales in the right direction, and we expect to touch millions of lives.

Zumba Fitness estimates that the average amount of calories burned in a Zumba® class is approximately 750 calories – a close equivalent of an average, healthy meal. Zumba Fitness’ unique partnership with the United Nations World Food Programme and Feeding America® allows your calorie donations to become an important financial resource for these organizations to leverage. Both organizations pool their resources from a network of entities and fundraising initiatives to dramatically expand their buying power and charitable reach, providing nutritious meals to those struggling with hunger.

Project resources

We created a micro website called ‘The Great Calorie Drive’ and also configured our mobile ‘app’ to allow participants to locate a local Zumba class and ‘checkin’ to their class. This ‘checkin’ then gets logs on ‘The Great Calorie Drive’ website and allows everyone to see what progress is being made towards our donation target.