Feed My Starving Children came to North Central College for their fourth annual Feed the Need event February 17. Per their website, Feed My Starving Children is a Christian non-profit committed to feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit. The goal is simple: help provide meals for malnourished children.
“This year our goal is 1.2 million meals which provides 3,400 children with one meal every day for an entire year. The food prepared today is planned to go to 70 different countries,” said event coordinator Bob Huebner. “To date, Feed My Starving Children has shipped 2,006,198,416 meals worldwide.”
“Gerald Kia donated a car and all of the raffle proceeds go into 100,000 meals. It’s all about the food,” said Huebner. In addition to the raffle, volunteers are encouraged to donate. The minimum donation is $50, which fills one box, with over 90 percent of donations going directly toward food production. For perspective, $80 feeds a child one meal a day for a year, $365 feeds a family for a year, $1,800 provides a pallet of food and $10,000 can feed an entire village.
Inside each pouch, there is vitamin powder, rice and soy. Every pouch has enough nutrition to reverse malnutrition and contains six meals. To cook, six cups of water needs to be added and boiled. The process is meant to make it as simple as possible for children to get the nutrients they need.
After the session, Carrie Wiggins congratulated and thanked volunteers for making the event so successful. “One thousand-thirty five boxes were filled during the session, which feeds 612 children one meal a day for a year,” said Wiggins. Gary Olsen closed out the session with a prayer over the meals the packed meals.
This is the fourth year this event has been held at North Central. Including the meals packed this year, 6.2 million meals have been packed so far at NCC alone. In addition to the community and church organizations, students volunteer at these events.
Freshman track athlete Katie Manna said members of the track team decided to volunteer because it was great “track team and all-student bonding.” Paige Nadherny, a sophomore lacrosse player, volunteered with her teammates because she is a “service committee member and part of the lacrosse team.”
