{"id":3586,"date":"2012-04-14T19:07:26","date_gmt":"2012-04-14T19:07:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/?p=3586"},"modified":"2013-07-02T10:15:18","modified_gmt":"2013-07-02T14:15:18","slug":"stop-hunger-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/catinaanderson.com\/photography\/stop-hunger-now\/","title":{"rendered":"Stop Hunger Now!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today Erik and I took our girls to participate in a “Stop Hunger Now!”<\/a> food packaging event sponsored by a local church<\/a>. \u00a0We heard about this opportunity to serve through an email sent out by our Girl Scout service unit. \u00a0Having participated in one of these events a few years ago in another part of the county we jumped at the opportunity to join in.<\/p>\n

…and I hope you’ll excuse the iphone pics … I was there in mommy\/volunteer mode – not photographer mode – so I did not take my “big camera” with me because I didn’t want it to get in the way of the important work I was engaging in with my kids \ud83d\ude42 Thanks to the iphone our memories were still captured and I have these pictures here to share with you \ud83d\ude42<\/em><\/p>\n

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Stop Hunger Now<\/a> is an organization that works to assemble and provide meals to children throughout the world. \u00a0Their website indicates that they primarily support school lunch programs in hunger-stricken regions. \u00a0Each meal (which was made up of a combination of soy, rice, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin packet) costs only $0.25 cents.<\/p>\n

At today’s event we packaged 50,000 meals.<\/p>\n

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We were told that today’s meals were being sent to a school in the Philippines. \u00a0Our leader explained that many children who wouldn’t otherwise be sent to school are sent to school because their families know they will get a good meal during the day. \u00a0So not only are the children being fed – they are also gaining an education they might not have otherwise obtained. \u00a0The combination will hopefully give them the opportunity to support their families into the future. \u00a0He mentioned that a school which started the program began with an enrollment of 200 students give or take… and after the addition of the meal program their enrollment grew to upwards of 1000 students.<\/p>\n

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The photo above shows a funnel station – 6 of us worked together at this station, each with a unique job. \u00a0One person held the bag onto the funnel, one put in a vitamin packet, one a cup of soy, one a spoon of vegetables, one a cup of rice and the 6th was a runner to take a tub of filled bags to a nearby weighing station where other volunteers checked the weight and then sealed the bags. \u00a0We actually had 3 second graders so while most stations had 6 we had 7… and our extra just rotated in and out of jobs so all the littler ones had some break time.<\/p>\n

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Their website<\/a> indicates that children age 4 and up are welcome to participate. \u00a0We did a meal packaging event when our girls were 4 or 5 and it was good but they only lasted through about 1\/2 hour before they were ready to go home (although it was still a great life lesson). \u00a0Today at age 7 ( almost 8 ) they were fully involved, independent, helped with a variety of jobs and made it a full 2 hours before we started to hear “When is lunch?”<\/p>\n

I really loved a lot of the life lessons that happened this morning.<\/p>\n