Over the last 36 hours, I have had the opportunity to spend 4 hours at a Feed My Starving Children mobile pack event.
1 shift was yesterday evening, as part of a team from work. This morning, my 2 oldest girls joined me as part of a group from church.
Going into the event yesterday afternoon, I was very apprehensive, not fully understanding all the details of what I had volunteered for. Once things were up and running though, it was an absolute blast.
My experience yesterday made it much easier to explain things to my daughters this morning. They too were very apprehensive and not fully on-board with the opportunity to volunteer. But, at the end of the 2 hours, they had big ol' smiles on their faces and thanked me for taking them.
How cool to see them enjoying serving!
How cool to have them serving alongside me!
If you are not familiar with Feed My Starving Children, here's a brief summary from their website:
Founded in 1987, Feed My Starving Children is a Christian
nonprofit that provides nutritionally complete meals for
starving, malnourished and hungry people in nearly 70
countries. The prepackaged dry meals –costing less than a
quarter each to make – are funded and assembled by donor-
volunteers in the United States. Our in-country partners use
the food to prevent starvation and curb malnourishment in
children and families worldwide.
Today, we put together "MannaPacks":
MannaPack Rice: Our original food formula consists of vitamin-
packed flavoring; dried vegetables; soy protein; and rice.
Basically, the 150-200 volunteers in a 2-hour shift are broken up into teams of 13 people on 10 stations. 4 scoop the food items. 4 handle the food bags -- making sure they are filled correctly and weighing them. 4 run the sealing machines. and 1 puts the MannaPacks into boxes, 36 per box.
The remaining 40 or so volunteers help prep bags, put together boxes, weigh boxes & stretch wrap, and deliver supplies to the 10 stations.
It's an amazingly efficient operation (once everyone has worked together for 15 minutes or so to get the feel for their role).
Seasoned Citizens working next to high schoolers. Moms, Dads, elementary kids, retired folks, Millikin students. All generations. All denominations. All working alongside one another to reach a common goal: put together meals to feed starving kids.
Very cool to see!
Yesterday evening, I was a runner.... delivering supplies, picking up filled boxes from the stations, making sure folks had what they needed.
This morning, my oldest was a "super scooper", putting vitamins and vegetables into each bag. My other daughter and I ran a sealing machine -- making sure each bag was heat-sealed properly so that it wouldn't break open during shipment overseas.
Both of them walked away with smiles in their faces. One of them worked next to a Millikin Music professor and had fun chatting with him and his wife. All of us gave out big hoots-n-hollers when each completed box was carried away from our station. We also had fun singing (and dancing) along to the music that was playing.... everything from Michael Jackson to Matthew West to Journey to Beach Boys to Taylor Swift.
If you ever get an opportunity to serve at a Feed My Starving Children pack event, please do so. It is such a fun and gratifying experience to be part of a team that in a 2-hour period packs enough meals to feed 109 kids for a full year.
Before I end this post, here are a few more facts.....
Each MannaPack meal costs
22¢ to produce.
Volunteers hand-pack all of our
fortified meals. More than half of
FMSC volunteers are under the age
of 18. In 2012, more than a half-
million volunteers joined FMSC to package 163 million meals for
children around the world.
FMSC is 100% donor funded. Because of our low overhead
costs, donations of all amounts go a long way in the fight
against world hunger. For nearly 10 years, FMSC has devoted
more than 92% of total donations directly to feeding kids.
Amazing organization and mission folks! 100% indisputable proof that you + 2 hours = world changer.
Out for now.....
Matt