lunch for the little ones

So, we had confirmation tonight. It was our scheduled visit to Feed My Starving Children, which is a Twin Cities based organization that partners with several organizations like Cargill and Pillsbury to package and provide nutritious meals for children in developing countries. They rely mostly on volunteer labor, which would be groups like our confirmation class coming to package and box up these meals to be sent. It is a perennial favorite. The kids love it, the parents love it, I love it and we get to do good work.

The meals are made up of rice, soy, vegetables and a chicken flavoring/ vitamin supplement. The kids work in groups scooping these ingredient into little bags, which are then sealed and put in boxes. My job, as it has been the past two times I've gone with the group, has been in the warehouse. This means that, when someone is running out of rice or soy or vegetables or chicken flavoring, I have to rush in and switch it out with a full bin. Then I have to take the empty bin back into the warehouse, fill it back up, and take it back out and put it with the other full bins. When they have a box full of sealed bags, then I have to take that box back into the warehouse, weigh it, tape it shut and then place it on the pallet. If they need more empty boxes, I have to go back to the warehouse and get them empty boxes. If there are no more empty boxes, I have to label and tape up more empty boxes. It is an active job, keeps me moving and doing something, and that's good for me. Luckily, I wasn't the only one doing it. It keeps several people busy and moving and running around.

The amazing thing about these bags of food is that they are pretty inexpensive, costing around $1.00 a piece. And this one bag, which is about the size of a bag of coffee from the supermarket, can feed six people. Sadly, I wasn't in the room when they told us how many boxes we packaged and how many people we would be providing meals for, so I can't relay that information to you. But I do know that those kids worked hard and I carried a lot of boxes back to the pallet in the warehouse. At the end, I was tired and sweaty from running back and forth and carrying so much stuff around. But I still felt good to know that I spent two hours of my life helping provide food for hungry children.

We watched a video at the beginning (I think it's the same one we've watched the past two years, too) and they interview this young girl who is having her birthday party there. Maybe I'll call and see if I can schedule my birthday party there this year. Celebrate 32 years of life on this earth by providing food for other people. I don't know any way that could be better.

for more info, head over to http://www.fmsc.org and check it out!