Feeding Children, Fueling Futures
Tawnya Rush has turned her passion for food into a powerful mission
As Tawnya Rush speaks of her love for Uganda, she begins with a distinct and visual image. Over 15 years ago, she remembers sailing into Kisima Island, Uganda, with her now-husband, Peter, by her side. It’s a small fishing village ravaged by poverty, genocide and disease. As the couple watched the approaching shore, they witnessed a slew of children running excitedly to greet them.
“It’s overwhelming,” Tawnya says. “When you're coming off the boat, and you see the kids running from the village in. There is a swarm of kids along the bank, waving and screaming. How could you not love that to start your day?”
Peter may have led her here, but knowing she is helping to provide critical meals to children in need keeps her coming back.
You might recognize Tawnya as the face of “Hello Montana” on Billings’ ABC and FOX television stations. She’s the cheery voice who, for two minutes a day, gets her finger on the pulse of Magic City happenings and causes. But when the studio lights fade, something else lights her soul on fire — the power to bring people together around food.
It was a passion that began while growing up as a farm girl in Thermopolis, Wyoming. She remembers the savory recipes cooked by her grandmother and the meals her mother fashioned around nearly every holiday.
“My mom made such special recipes on special days, whether it was a 4th of July picnic or our Valentine’s Day spaghetti dinner with her homemade sauce, it was really special,” she says.
When her broadcast career took off, she infused those special dishes into her work with a segment she called “Meals in a Rush.”
“I took family recipes, cooked and shared them,” Tawnya says of the show she started while working in Casper, Wyoming. “When I moved to work in Denver, I took the segment down there and expanded it. That sparked my philanthropic work.”
From time to time, she’d interview people who were not only feeding people locally, but thousands of miles away overseas. Featuring Colorado’s former Governor Bill Ritter and his wife, Jeannie’s work feeding the people of Zambia earned her an Emmy Award.
When Haiti suffered a catastrophic earthquake in 2010, Tawnya connected with a gentleman who had a feeding program there. Going on a mission trip to help the country pick up the pieces ignited her passion to feed those in need.
Not long after she returned, she sat down at the anchor desk to interview a man who was serving as a volunteer with a nearby teen mentorship program. That man was her future husband, Peter Vogel.
“It was the funniest thing because I looked at my colleagues and I remember saying, ‘I think he is pretty cute. Let’s go back and look at the tape,’” she says with a laugh. Days later, after Peter embarked on a mission trip to Uganda, he dropped her a note. “He emailed me from Africa to thank me for being on the show and said ‘Hopefully, I’ll see you again.’”
Peter also recalls that moment. “I was immediately smitten with her,” he says.
Not only did the two kindle a relationship, but Tawnya was at Peter’s side when he planted the first formal feeding program in Uganda that would serve as the backbone for his nonprofit. On Uganda started with a simple promise to feed 45 children every day and to partner with HELP International to build a school.
“Over the years, Tawnya and I have planted, funded and administered feeding programs that now feed 1,000 kids daily,” Peter says. The couple is in talks to add another school to the program, which would put food in the mouths of 300 more children.
During COVID 19, when Uganda schools and the feeding program were shut down, Tawnya and Peter funded an Emergency Food Insecurity Response - providing over three tons of corn and beans to feed two island communities in Uganda East Africa. The coronavirus crisis would have pushed several thousand people to the brink of starvation unless these meals were provided.
“I see his passion and how much he loves what he does and loves the kids,” Tawnya says. “That’s what nurtures my soul. It gets you on a different path.”
On a trip in 2025, Tawnya experienced a life-changing moment. As members of the community were singing and dancing in praise, she spotted a beautiful woman in a yellow dress walking toward her.
“I saw something come full circle,” Tawnya says. Leah was one of the little girls Tawnya met on one of her first trips, back in 2010. “She started going to school because she got her one meal of the day. She graduated and is now a teacher there. She has grown into this beautiful adult, and it all started with her going to that school. She has flourished.” With emotion in her voice she adds, “That was really cool to see.”
Leah’s story is a bright light in what could otherwise be seen as dark and devastating.
Peter explains that the community of 30,000 “is known as one of the largest slums in Uganda, and is made up largely of survivors of war, genocide and famine from all over East Africa who sought refuge and settled in what is called Masese.” It’s a place that is too often defined by what it lacks, he adds.
There is no electrical grid, no mail service, no sanitation, and nothing but dirt roads.
“I've seen bloated bellies, and I've seen children just sitting on the street,” Tawnya says. One experience is burned in her memory. “There was this mom, her kids came around the corner. They were standing there and she said to me, ‘You take.’ I said, ‘Peter, what is going on?’ He said, ‘Just sit here. She is asking us to take (her children).’”
The woman had two sons around the ages of 5 and 7.
“Something really tugged at my heart strings with that,” Tawnya says. “When you look down a row of people who are in desperation. They don’t have shoes. They don’t have clothing. You see children running around naked. It stays with you. You think, ‘We are just not doing enough.’ We are. It’s just kid by kid by kid.”
Both Tawnya and Peter feel an intense responsibility to the children they serve. They know that each meal is more than that. It’s a lifeline to a better future.
“There are times when you say, ‘Okay, we’ve got six months of funding ahead of us. We have got to figure something out.’ You don’t want to let anyone down,” Tawnya says. “Food feeds the mind, body and souls and in order to learn, you have to focus, and it’s harder on a hungry stomach.”
When Tawnya makes the trek back to Uganda, there are members of the staff who have become like family. There is Richard, the program’s director. Stricken with polio in his teenage years, for many years he carried the stigma of living and working with a handicap. And there’s Betty, whose ever-present smile and giving nature never ceases to amaze Tawnya and Peter. She’s affectionately known to all as Head Cook and Mama.
“Betty is a refugee from Sudan that came down and found her way to this village in Uganda. She started as a cook, with her babies going to school there,” Tawnya says, adding that even with her children grown, “It’s kept her employed.”
During the 27 years On Uganda has been serving in the region, enrollment at the school has increased, drop-out rates have fallen, children’s health and nutrition have improved and parents have been able to breathe easier knowing their children are being fed.
While On Uganda was something Peter launched, if you ask those who are on the ground working, Tawnya has definitely earned the title of “partner” in the effort.
“Tawnya has done far more than feed children in Uganda. She has nourished hope,” says Ronny Sitanga, the International Director for H.E.L.P. International, a nonprofit that sends student volunteers to fight global poverty through sustainable development initiatives. “Her meals have become more than food — they are a powerful message to every child that they are seen, valued and worth investing in.”
In time, Tawnya would love to partner with local nonprofits to raise funds not only for the Billings community but help send a bit of generosity abroad.
“Hunger does not discriminate,” she says. “I get to have the platform in television to share these stories on a broad scale.” She’d like the program to expand to other communities and down the road, she says she’d love to live in Uganda year-round. Doing this work, she says, helps her to open her eyes to see how blessed and lucky she genuinely is.
“There’s a saying, when you get caught up in yourself,” she says, “go serve.”
TO LEARN MORE ABOUT ON UGANDA, visit cultureprep.com and scroll to the bottom to learn how every dollar raised is used in the effort to feed children.
