Barrymore named ambassador against hunger

updated 2:44 p.m. ET May 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - Drew Barrymore has been named an ambassador against hunger for the World Food Program.

The 32-year-old actress recently returned from a trip to Kenya, where she toured WFP-supported school meal projects, the United Nations announced this week.

“I can’t think of any issue that is more important than working to see that no schoolchild in this world goes hungry,” Barrymore said in a statement Wednesday. “Feeding a child at school is such a simple thing, but it works miracles. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.”

Barrymore joins marathoner Paul Tergat as an ambassador. Tergat, from Kenya, benefited from school meal programs as a child, then won the New York City marathon in 2005.

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Founded in 1962, WFP provides food aid to an average of 90 million poor people, including 58 million hungry children in at least 80 of the world’s poorest countries. The United States said it provides nearly half the annual contributions to the Rome-based agency, which has an annual budget of just under $3 billion.

Barrymore is advocating legislation in Congress to increase money for school meals from $100 million per year to about $300 million per year within five years.

Her screen credits include the “Charlie’s Angels” movies and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.”

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