Feed My Starving Children 2014

For the past few years, a nearby church has hosted a Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) Mobile Pack Event.  FMSC is fighting to eliminate starvation in children throughout the world. They team up with churches, colleges, and other large groups, inviting people in the community to work a two-hour shift.  Volunteers work together to pack a special food product that was designed specifically to meet the nutritional needs of starving children.  They scoop rice, soy, vegetables, a vegetarian-based chicken flavoring, and a vitamin and mineral mix into a funnel which is dumped into a plastic bag.  Each bag hold six meals.  The bag is weighed and sealed.  These bags are then packed into a box that is loaded onto a truck.  Each box holds 36 bags.  These boxes are shipped out to starving children all over the world.  In a previous post, I described our family's experience working with FMSC.  

Our Brownie troop voted on the service projects they would work on this year.  They agreed they wanted to pack meals for hungry people.  Knowing how much my daughters loved serving with FMSC, we arranged for our troop to volunteer.  While FMSC holds weekend-long packing events throughout the country, Kids Against Hunger has a permanent site in Cincinnati.  The Volunteer Coordinator at Kids Against Hunger was willing to work with our group as well.  If you are in the Cincinnati area, check them out!

Upon arrival for the shift, we were handed a hairnet and instructed to remove all jewelry.  After signing in, we took a seat in a meeting room and listened to a brief orientation which included a short video.  We saw many children on this video who have been receiving meals from FMSC for quite some time.  They are no longer worried about their next meal.  They have food, clothes, and shelter, so now they can focus on their education.  We listened as many children shared their dreams of becoming engineers, flight attendants, teachers, journalists, and doctors.  These dreams are not much different from the hopes our Girl Scouts have for the future.  During our two-hour shift, we joined 100 volunteers to pack enough meals to feed 80 children for a year!  In addition, this troop donated $80 of their cookie money to FMSC.  This money will pay for the meals to feed one child for an entire year!  Not only were these girls fulfilling a service project requirement, they completed a couple of steps toward earning the Philanthropist Badge.  Most importantly, they were helping to make a difference in the lives of others...and they had fun in the process!  Thanks for reading.