Can We Talk 2

Meals To Fight Hunger

I'm looking forward to a project that hasn't been done in my area in two years. There's a "fight hunger" group that is mobile that allows people to participate in feeding third world people. I did it two or three years ago and enjoyed it.

It was begun by a church group and all the original costs were handled by them. Now it's still owned by them, but it's run by volunteers, and goes to churches, schools or clubs that want to fund it and do the work. Each work day usually puts 10,000 meals together. The group pays for the food items, bags, and cartoning, provides the work space, and then uses their own members to pack the meals under the direction of the traveling volunteer and driver.

You have a funnel and bag holder and various measuring cups at each station. We set up about 8 assembly stations, each with two long tables end to end. One person starts the bag with a vitamin pack. It goes in first because when the bag is open, it falls out and won't be cooked in the mixture. The vitamins are powdered and are aimed at children. Next goes the right amount of rice, then a smaller amount of barley, some other filling things, then a small amount of dried vegetables for flavor. The bag is weighed, sealed and packed in a box for shipping with a lot of other bags. We load the truck with sealed boxes.

The cartons are shipped to an impoverished area where a missionary, a teacher or native minister will distribute them. This avoids sitting in a dock, being sold on the black market, and so forth. No government people on either end get involved. Each bag feeds a family of four. Instructions are given by the distributor on how to cook them.

Studies have shown that hungry people have more children. I heard a lot of stupid remarks made on that bit of information. The truth is that poor hungry people have more children because the likelihood of losing one is so great. It's not logical, but it works that way, that the hungrier they are, the more likely they are to die, the more mouths they have to feed, with the hope that some of the children will live long enough to take care of the parents. It has nothing to do with sexuality or low morality.

To improve the chances of education, the meals are usually distributed through the schools. The kids have to be allowed to attend school each day to get the meal for the family that night. Otherwise the kids would stay home or be sent out to beg. At school, they learn to read and write and can have their health monitored.

I wouldn't want to work on an assembly line day in and day out because of the monotony. But knowing this is a one day thing, knowing the outcome and the worthiness of the work, makes it meaningful. Then there's the element of teamwork and camaraderie. I'm actually looking forward to it.