Lauren Bush Launches FEED Guatemala Bags at Lord & Taylor

FEED Guatemala Bags. Photo: Lord & Taylor/ Flickr

It's always dicey to celebrate the launch of something meant to stop hunger with a food-filled party.

In the case of the FEED Guatemala Bag launch at Lord & Taylor's New York City's flagship, it just had to be done. And well done it was, with tropical-themed food, cocktails, music, and décor featuring images of Guatemala.

"It's a beautiful, graceful country," FEED co-founder Lauren Bush told StyleList. "Though Guatemala is so close to developed countries, it's really bad off. It's peaceful there now, but you see kids that look five and they're 10. It was a shocking education [for me] to see what hunger looks like."

Model turned activist Bush, along with Ellen Gustafson, created the FEED program, which aims to provide meals to malnourished and undernourished children around the world. Because Guatemala has the largest number of chronically malnourished children in Latin America, it's the area FEED is targeting with its newest, brightly colored totes ("3" bags) and clutches ("1 bags"), available exclusively at Lord & Taylor for $39 and $19, respectively. The "3" bag provides three children with a micronutrient powder supplement from UNICEF for one year; the "1" bag feeds one child.

And the bags themselves help out the local economy. "They're made in Guatemala by the women artisans in all different ikat fabrics," Bush said. "We wanted to take it full circle and support the women making the bags, as well as give back to UNICEF's work in Guatemala."

Meanwhile, read how Lauren Conrad and Mark Cosmetics are helping women.