Stop Hunger Now

Yesterday was busy!

I started the morning at a really cool event put on by Stop Hunger Now. It was held at my church and co-sponsored by the ADAMS Center, a mosque located around the corner from Christ the Redeemer Catholic Church. 175 people from our community gathered from 9:30-11:30 with the goal of packaging meals for 35,000 people! I have to say I was motivated not only by the desire to be part of this great mission, but also because I didn’t see how it was possible to do so much in such a small amount of time and wanted to see for myself.

Stop Hunger Now is a worldwide organization that packages and ships meals to feed people in need. They have engaged over 500,000 corporate, student, civic and faith-based volunteers to package meals and educated thousands of people each year about hunger and inspire them to help end it. This year, they will package 45 million meals, and ship over $9 million in donated aid, mainly vitamins and medical supplies.

It is an immensely fun, hands-on and rewarding experience for anyone of any age. A group of 40 to 50 volunteers can package 10,000 meals in just two hours. To get started in organizing your packaging event, set a goal for the number of meals you will package and contact your local program coordinator. Start to recruit volunteers based on the number of meals you plan to package. Then you can begin to fund your event. All you need to raise is 29 cents for each meal you package.

So I was welcomed with a hairnet (they told us ahead of time to wear a baseball hat and I forgot) and told to take a space in front of a table holding intriguing bins of grains and spices, a large plastic funnel on a stand, plastic bags and clear bins.

We were then given our briefing on the logistics of how it all worked. And then the music came on and we were off!

Each person had a job and we worked in teams of six. It took a little while to get onto the rhythm of it…

we had a couple of timing fails which resulted in this. Oops- no bag…

But after a while we were rocking and rolling- every time you filled 1000 bags, a gong was sounded so we knew how things were progressing.

What I loved about it was seeing a community come together for a short time and work together as a team to accomplish something big. I think everyone in the room felt it too. And sure enough, at 11:30, as promised, we were done and had accomplished our goal of packaging 35,000 meals for those in need. Every four seconds, someone dies of hunger in the world. Wow.  It’s hard to comprehend this living where we do.

I highly recommend it. If you or an organization would like to sponsor an event, click here.

After the event I rushed off to a bridal shower where I learned that waiting till the last minute to make a gift can sometimes lead to embarrassing consequences… to be continued!