Humans of Bristol--Ann Aicginger

Humans of Bristol--Ann Aicginger

Interviewed by Maddy Wilson

“I was about fourteen years old, at a Montreat Missions Conference, totally bored, not thinking it would be any fun… but it changed everything for me. We took different workshops, as you do, and in one afternoon workshop the leader said, “if there is something that you can help solve in this world, you need to do it. If there is something that is pulling at your heart, God says to do it.” 


“Well there was this Nestle boycott with the Presbyterian Church… Where Nestle was sending baby formula, dry baby formula, sending it to third world countries, mostly in Africa and places and said to mix it with water. But, they don’t have clean water there. So they mixed it with river water and the children were fed dirty water which decreased the nutrients in the formula so the children were starving. And the mother’s breast milk was drying up so they couldn’t feed them when they were starving. It was a horrible, horrible practice. They didn’t do it on purpose, but it did not go well.”


“After that I said, I said I could deal with hunger. After that week long conference, I came back to Central Pres, talked to my youth group about it and the session about it, and I said they should boycott. The session voted to do that and Central Presbyterian was a part of that boycott for about six or seven years. It was a nationwide boycott to make Nestle change their practices. And it worked. If they sent the formula, they also sent clean water. It was in the early 80s, and this boycott went on for about six or seven years but it finally worked...”


“I put my whole heart into the whole issue of hunger. Since then I’ve been actively involved in hunger and backpack programs, food pantries and soup kitchens and all of that has been at the front. But (Nestle) is what really started that kind of desire to make a difference in the world”

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