Questions
Plain answers.
- What is TheClearCup?
TheClearCup is a feeding program you can see through. One dollar fills a real cup of nutrition for a child, poured by a smart machine, and every cup is traceable: which machine, which community, which day. No promises. Receipts.
- Why one dollar?
Because one dollar fills one cup, and one cup is a child's whole day of vitamins and minerals. It is a number anyone can say, share and check.
Thirty cents of it pay for the cup itself: the capsule, the clean water, the machine and the person who keeps it running. Fifteen cents pay for seeing it happen. Ten cents keep the lights on, and that part is capped. The last forty-five cents build the next machine, for the next child. If the real cost of a cup ever moves, the split moves with it, in public.
A cup from us costs less per child per day than any feeding program we can find, and it is the only one that can show you the cup. The comparison, with its sources:
Sources: World Food Programme USA, 2025; Center for Global Development, 2024 ($110 per child per year over 200 meal days); ShareTheMeal, €0.70 at September 2026 rates; CHAI and UNICEF, August 2026 ($46.70 per carton of 150 sachets). A school meal carries more calories than our cup; our cup carries the whole day's vitamins and minerals, one capsule per child per day, with the receipt. Some national programs serve a basic maize-and-beans meal for about $0.20. That meal has no vitamin dose, no per-child record and no receipt. - What is in the cup?
A smoothie. It starts as one small sealed capsule: milk and soy protein, energy, and a day's vitamins and minerals, sealed at the plant and never opened until the machine opens it. The machine mixes it with clean water and pours a pale-green cup that children ask for again. One capsule is one child's day. The recipe is public.
The exact doses are being checked by pediatric nutrition specialists at a university before any child drinks.
- How do I know my cup was really poured?
The machine is the witness. It knows which child it poured for, it signs every cup, and every day's record goes onto a public ledger that nobody can edit afterwards. Not even us. You get a receipt: cup number, place, date, filled by you. One tap deeper is the technical trail, which you can check yourself.
Three levels, each one checkable without trusting us:
- 1Provable
Your dollar arrived, how the pool was split between machines, when money went out and to whom. Public accounts, refreshed every quarter.
- 2Attested
Every cup, per machine, per day, signed by the device and written daily to a public ledger. Nobody can invent or inflate a cup. Including us.
- 3Evidenced
The last mile: capsules, transport and operators, paid in local money, with the receipts published.
the technical trail: cup #12,483 · the hash of the pourcheckable on the public ledgerFor those who want the plumbing: the public ledger is a blockchain. We do not lead with the word, because the point is the receipt, not the chain.
- 1
- What will the audit page look like?
A dashboard anyone can open: how many cups were filled today and this month, which machines are online, the latest cup, and the technical trail underneath. When a machine goes down, it is written here too, with the cause and the fix. This is a preview with example numbers, until the first machine pours.
Cups filled this month12,482Cups filled today412Machines online3of 3Communities2
Cup #12,483 · Machine 02Thursday, 09:41
MachinesMachine 01a school gate · online09:38Machine 02a school gate · online09:41Machine 03a health post · online09:35Campaign61%the technical trail: cup #12,483 · the hash of the dispense eventverifiable on the public chainPreview: the audit page, as it can look when the first machine pours. Example numbers. Illustrative render. - Can I fill a cup now?
Not yet. No cup has been poured, and we do not take money for cups that cannot be poured. You can say you'll fill one: leave your email, and when the first machine pours, your cup is among the first. One dollar then, not now, and you get the receipt.
- Where are the first machines?
They are being built. We name a place when a machine is standing in it, not before. The program is built for children anywhere; the need is not a continent, it is a child in a place with a name.
- Who is Millhouse?
TheClearCup is a non-profit and stays one: it raises from people and foundations, and spends on cups. Millhouse International is a company, our infrastructure partner: it fills the capsules, builds and runs the machines, and is paid per checked cup at a published price. The two never share a logo. They share a cup.
- What happens when something goes wrong?
We say so, on the same page, in the same type, with the cause and the fix. A machine offline for two days is a line on the audit page: here is why, and here is what we did. A program built on seeing is judged in its worst week, so this is a rule, not a hope.
- How is TheClearCup funded and checked?
By people and foundations. Both organisations are audited every year: grants in, gifts in, spend out, on one page. Admin and fundraising stop at ten cents on the dollar. Nobody is paid twice. The price of every cup TheClearCup buys is on the audit page, not in a footnote.
- How many children need this?
150 million children under five are stunted, and 43 million are wasted. The two groups overlap, so the counts are never added.
Almost half of all deaths under five are linked to undernutrition: about two million children a year.
466 million children get a school meal. 266 million primary-age children in poorer countries do not.
The world has the food and the money for this. What is missing is a simple way to put a full cup in a child's hands, every day, and let you see it.
UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank, Joint Malnutrition Estimates 2025, data for 2024. Black et al., The Lancet, 2013. UN IGME 2025. World Food Programme, State of School Feeding Worldwide 2024.
- Why are there no photographs of children on this site?
Because the first real photographs have not been taken, and we never publish made-up ones. Real children, really fed, or nothing. When we do photograph, one question comes before any picture ships: if this were my child, would I be proud of this photo? Children are the heroes of their own story, never props in ours.
- Who is Kopp?
Kopp is the wordless clear cup on the machine's screen (kopp is Norwegian for cup). Kopp shows a child each step to their smoothie and performs for children, not for the internet. Kopp is the cup, never a child, is never hungry, and never jokes about hunger. Real children always carry the story; Kopp carries the steps.
- What do you do with my email?
We keep it, with your name and country if you gave them, so we can send one email when the first machine pours. Nothing else: no newsletters, no sharing, no selling. Ask and we delete it. There are no cookies on this site, and no tracking that needs a banner.
