Vitamin Angels’ Fledgling Fight for Filipinos

It was hot, crowded, and noisy in the tin-roofed, open-walled gymnasium at the center of Javier, one of the larger towns in the Philippine province of Leyte. A limp banner in the corner of the stands advertised the “Mayor’s Cup” basketball tournament, but on a Friday afternoon late in October, the newly painted concrete floor was home to several hundred mothers, fathers, and young children, spilling in and out of seats and aisles arranged across the court. As we walked in, flanked by the town police and mayor’s personal escort to a cacophony of prompted applause, I muttered, “Whoa.”

“It’s always like this, especially if there’s politicians involved ​— ​they really know how to bring out the people,” Howard Schiffer replied, raising his voice slightly to be heard over the noise. “But this is how you get to 30 million.”

Schiffer has been many things in his life: a commune member at the height of the flower-powered 1970s, a midwife, a natural-products entrepreneur, and, for the past 20 years, one of the most avid opponents of malnutrition on a global scale. His Santa Barbara–based nonprofit organization, Vitamin Angels (VA), has programs in 50 countries, including the United States, and has reached an estimated 30 million children in danger of or suffering from malnutrition and vitamin deficiencies.