Hitting the Road: 10,152 meals in 2hrs 15min....WOW!!!!

The Women's Ministry at our church had decided to host an event through the Stop Hunger Now organization. A wonderful non-profit group that sends dried foods to people all over the world. Food is packaged in sealed bags with rice/soy/dried veggies/flavor packet and then boxed for shipping. To make it worth the time for Stop Hunger Now to come to your site, you have to commit to packing a minimum of 10,000 meals and raise $2900... .29cents per meal to help with shipping, and have at least 40 volunteers.
That doesn't sound like much but for our tiny church, it was a challenge. So we got busy raising money and making plans. We designed church t-shirts and sold them, where we made some good money, but not enough...so our next efforts were to have a bake sale. One of our members owns a large gas station and graciously allowed us to have our bake sale there on a Saturday. We were set up in 2 places, this station is large, and we were there from 8a-3p.....a long, hot, but profitable day.

We were tired and hot, but thankful to Bea for letting us use the station and to God for keeping the rain away..

We made a sign and tried to keep up with our fund raising...

We continued our fund raising and with a little help from the church general fund we were ready for our big day. It started early for set up...we had to set up funnel stations, weighing and sealing stations and finally packing stations....we had over 50 volunteers and it went amazingly fast and well.

Had to unpack the truck...

Put all the boxes together that we'd need for packing...

The sticker on the boxes....said we did it....how cool.....we were making a differnce in hungry peoples lives...when these get shipped, we will get an email telling us where they have gone.

Waiting to get started....

Filing into the fellowship hall to sign it, get a hair net and sanitize hands and put on gloves....

Signing in and getting an assignment......

Netted up, gloved up and waiting for instructions......

The kids mostly covered the funnel stations....they were better able to stand the entire time!!!

Funnel stations.....READY!!!

John, our Stop Hunger Now sponsor was telling us about the program and teaching us what to do.

He did a great job....and we were fasy learners...

John was really so great to work with.....

Our weighing and sealing station.....you weighed on one side of the table and sealed on the other...very efficient.

And we began...a flavor packet/ scoop of rice/scoop of soy and some dried vegetables....just keep it moving

The weighers and sealers were on it.....they kept it moving...

Each time we packed 1000 bags and got them into the truck we hit the gong.....wooohoo!!

First 1000.....

Mauricio stayed busy carrying filled bags from the funnel station to the weighing station

Another 1,000....wooohoo...we were getting there!!!

And the weighers and sealers stayed busy...

And another 1000.....we were geting closer!!!

Our packing crew was very busy also.....they use this sign to help them pack....2 packets per square.
Pretty clever....

Since they were at the end of the line....they had to wait on some packets to get ready....

Then they were busy.....

All the way to the truck......

While we were working we had some of the food cooking so we could taste what we were packing...it needed some salt, but we figured each country may add their own seasonings, so it was kept a bit bland for that reason....

And in the end...we packed 10, 152 meal packages in 2hrs and 15 min....not bad!!!

Here's what the packages looked like...nutritinal info and instructions....these folks know how to make things happen....thanks for letting us be a part of this.