China's civil charity project "Free Lunch for Children" collected 18.33 million yuan ($2.9 million) to provide free lunches to 15,000 kids in 2011, according to the annual financial report of China Social Welfare Foundation (CSWF) released Sunday.

The Free Lunch project called on donors to give three yuan to support students in poverty-stricken areas. It was organized by Phoenix Weekly magazine journalist Deng Fei, along with 500 other journalists, media staff and lawyers.

The CSWF opened a bank account to receive public donations on April 2, 2011, and collected 65,000 yuan each day on average until December 31, 2011.

The total expenditure of this project in 2011 was about 3.46 million yuan last year, supporting 129 schools in 14 provinces. The report also released details of the fund and how to supervise local schools to best execute the project.

The project founder Deng Fei said the financial report represented the pioneer role of the Free Lunch project in the exploration of public services, by receiving public and transparent supervision.