Mikayla Lema is raising funds so her “brothers and sisters” in Haiti can eat three meals a day just like she does.

The eight-year-old is on a mission to support her new friends at the Feed My Lambs Ministry orphanage in Montrouis.

“I was shocked because I have three meals a day and they don’t,” Mikayla, of Devonshire, told The Royal Gazette. “They only get two meals a day.”

Mikayla accompanied her mother, Naomi Lema, to Feed My Lambs Ministry in Haiti for a week in October.

They stayed in the dormitory at the orphanage, which looks after 58 children, and Mikayla said she had made friends “with all of them”.

“They really wanted to play with me a lot,” she added.

While she helped out where she could when the children were at school, she said her favourite part about the trip was playing with all of them and getting to know them.

But she said the trip was also an eye-opener, especially seeing “what they have to go through”.

After returning to Bermuda, she wrote letters to all of her new friends at the orphanage but decided to do more and started fundraising.

She has collected about $670 through a Go Fund Me page, house sale and individual donations, and hopes to bring this up to $5,000.

Mikayla will be holding a bake sale outside ER Aubrey Jewellers tomorrow and on March 19, the Supermart on March 12, and the Hamilton MarketPlace on March 13 and 20.

She said the money would pay for her ticket so she could go “back there to see my brothers and sisters and everyone in the orphanage”.

Any additional funds will be put towards the feeding programme for the orphans so they “can eat three meals a day just like me”.

She said she was already excited about going back to see her new friends, especially her “brother” Lovensky, 10, and her “sister” Darcy, 3.

Ms Lema sponsors Lovensky and is hoping to sponsor Darcy, too. She is planning to travel back to Haiti on March 26.

Feed My Lambs Ministry, a charitable organisation founded by Bermudian Phillip Rego, runs the orphanage in Montrouis, as well as a school for 700 students.

Over the years, they have expanded their facilities to include a clinic, water-treatment facility and school kitchen.

They are now working on setting up a dental clinic and carpentry shop, as well as further develop an agricultural project to supply the orphans and school with fresh produce.

• For more information, visit www.feedmylambsministry.org or call Linda Adderley on 536-3613