By Melissa Taylor
Capital West News
SALT LAKE CITY – Hundreds of volunteers donned hairnets, gloves, and aprons at a weekend gathering to prepare food packages for starving children all over the world.
The Saturday event at the Gateway was sponsored by a partnership between K2 the Church and Feed My Starving Children, a non-profit Christian organization. The campaign is titled “Kids Feeding Kids,” which host coordinator, Maureen Evans, said was drawn from the inspiration that “everyone is a kid at heart.”
Packing took place at two separate times, in order to accommodate the large volunteer numbers, and each session began with a 15-minute overview of Feed My Starving Children’s worldwide service, and a set of instructions on how to pack the meals safely and effectively.
The previous Old Navy store location was donated by Gateway Mall as a packing location for the event. The process involves packing the meal (rice, soy, and flavoring packets) into small bags, which are sealed, weighed, boxed, and shipped off to one of nearly 70 countries. Each bag provides six meals to someone in need.
Six-year-old Edna, from Sandy, Utah, volunteered with her mom and spent the duration of the event sealing bags of food to be boxed and shipped. “My favorite part about being here is being able to help and feed kids that don’t have food,” she said.
“The sad statistic is one child, every seven seconds, dies from starvation in the world. We’re really blessed to live in this country where there are so many places that people who need food can get it,” Evans said. “But these kids don’t live in a place like that.”
Based on volunteerism alone, the event was a success, but the production is also impressive: 972 boxes, or 209,952 meals. But it wasn’t the big numbers that mattered as much as the smaller ones, the staff said. The amount of food that was packaged will be able to feed 575 kids for one year.
“I’ve seen the kids who literally, many of them, it’s the only meal they’ll get for the day and when you see these boxes that you got packed up and watch kids come and get their first, and maybe only meal for the day, that’s pretty powerful,” said Dave Nelson, Pastor of K2 the Church.
Both K2 the Church and Feed My Starving Children, are hoping to partner up and host the event again next year. Information regarding upcoming events can be found on the organization’s website, fmsc.org.
