Ending hunger, one meal at a time
Holli Reavis, 8, and her aunt, Rita Roth, pour rice into a MobilePack Friday evening at Skyway Elementary School. Hundreds of volunteers gathered to fill packs for the Feed My Starving Children MobilePack program to reach hungry children around the world. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Around 500 volunteers pack meals for the Feed My Starving Children MobilePack program Friday evening at Skyway Elementary School. Around 100,000 meals were packed to send to hungry children around the world. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
The meal packs contain dried vegetables (shown here), soy, rice, and other ingredients. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
LOREN BENOIT/Press Volunteer Kamryn Pickford pours soy into a bag for the Feed My Starving Children MobilePack program Friday evening at Skyway Elementary School.
Over 500 volunteers with Skyway Elementary School and Lake City Church packed 100,000 meals for Feed My Starving Children program last Friday. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Irene Duguay wraps boxes full of MobilePacks Friday evening at Skyway Elementary School. The meals will be sent to hungry children around the world. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
Austin Taylor scoops up soy to into a smaller bin during MobilePack's Feed My Starving Children program Friday evening at Skyway Elementary School. (LOREN BENOIT/Press)
COEUR d’ALENE — A fantastic frenzy of scooping, sealing, bagging and cheering unfolded in the Skyway Elementary gym Friday night, amid a sea of white hairnets and A-plus attitudes.
“It feels so good to be helping people,” said a gleeful Stella Cosgrove, 10, of Coeur d'Alene, who worked at a station with her mom and brother.
Two sessions of volunteers, close to 500 total, made the treacherous venture to the school during the first snowy night of December to make a dent in the world's hunger epidemic.
Skyway partnered with Lake City Church and gathered the volunteers to prep meals for a Feed My Starving Children MobilePack event, where the two groups packaged more than 101,000 meals.
"'Tis the season for giving. The timing is perfect. As far as the holiday season, it's perfect," said Skyway Principal Rick Kline. "It really gives the school an opportunity to bring our students and our families together. We have this opportunity not only to teach empathy, but there's just something about doing this and knowing you’re part of the change in the world."
Feed My Starving Children is a Minnesota-based Christian nonprofit that delivers easy-to-prepare, nutritious meal packages into some of the most dangerous and impoverished parts of the world, such as Somalia and Haiti, to feed those who are the most vulnerable — the kids.
Meal-packing events take place in communities all over the United States. The meals the North Idaho volunteers packed include veggies, vitamins, soy protein and rice to provide those vulnerable children with one of the most basic needs that will help them grow and develop into healthy adults.
"There's this whole cycle of poverty," said MobilePack event coordinator Deb Ayers, who is also the global serve administrator for Lake City Church. "If you can get nutrition in children, they can be able to learn in school and get an education. It's the path of sustainability for that community."
She smiled as she looked into the gym, where hairnet-wearing volunteers of all ages had positioned themselves in assembly line formation at different tables to prep the meals.
"When the snow started falling today, I prayed," she said. "It is so heartwarming to me to see kindergarteners, teachers, their parents, their grandparents, all serving together."
Info: www.fmsc.org