Feed My Starving Children -- McCook-area volunteers pack 209,952 meals for distribution in Haiti

Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette

McCOOK, Nebraska -- The Rev. Rob Putz, pastor at Cornerstone Fellowship, said it well when he prayed Feb. 7, during a team planning meeting for the McCook Mobile Pack for Feed My Starving Children:

"We give praise for this many-membered Body of Christ and for your power, O God, in bringing us together for this massive mission."

More than 1,000 volunteers, a score of area churches, the Red Willow County Ministerial Association and core team leaders came together Friday and Saturday at McCook Christian Church to pack 200,000 meals for FMSC, founded in 1987, a Christian non-profit agency that has provided many millions of meals to starving children in more than 70 countries.

A chalkboard records the number of meals packed (36,504) during the first packing session Friday afternoon, and the final pack (27,864) Saturday afternoon. Final session packers hit the target goal of 200,000 meals about halfway through their packing session and then continued packing until the last pallet was filled, for a total of 209,952 meals packed, destined for Haiti. The final session packers also tore down the entire packing assemblage before calling it a day late Saturday afternoon. (Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette)

The meals packed in McCook are destined for Haiti, where the missionary family of Jason and Andrea Schmick will have a part in seeing it distributed.

Volunteer packers raised the roof with cheers Saturday afternoon when the target goal of 200,000 meals was reached and raised it again when staff from FMSC announced that the final tally of meals for the two-day pack was 209,952.

People of all colors, all ages, rich, poor and in-between, gathered over the two-day event, donned white hair-nets and quickly fell into a working rhythm, depositing "chicken, veggies, soy and rice!" into sealable bags to combat starvation and the effects of malnutrition on people around the world.

Volunteer packers pay close attention to the orientation speech and video before heading into the packing area where final instructions were provided. Each team worked the assembly-line, depositing the chicken flavored vitamins and minerals, the dehydrated vegetables, soy product and rice into six-serving bags. By the time the last grain of rice was packaged, the McCook Pack had produced 209,952 meals or 34,992 packages. (Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette)

Kevin Ewing, a MobilePack Supervisor with FMSC, never loses sight of the children he has seen benefit from the more than 250 mobilepacks that take place each year in the United States.

"I was on the first (FMSC) international pack in Nicaragua last fall," Ewing said, "And I saw up close the smiles and the gratitude of the people who benefitted from the 100,000 meal pack."

Ewing reports the grim hunger statistics world-wide, noting that some 18,000 children in the world succumb to starvation and malnutrition every day.

Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette

"It doesn't have to be this way," he said with passion during an interview Friday. "The resources are available, even in areas of extreme drought and famine.

"Corrupt governments, prolonged drought and political unrest contribute to this sobering statistic."

Feed My Starving Children only deals with non-governmental organizations that have a proven track record in-country of getting the food to the people who need it.

Volunteer packers may have been a little overwhelmed Friday afternoon at the unopened one ton bags of rice waiting for them at McCook Christian Church, and case after case of soy product, part of an ambitious 200,000 meal pack for Feed my Starving Children. By the time the final volunteers reported for duty Saturday at 2 p.m., all that remained were two open bags of rice and a few cases of soy product. More than 1,000 volunteers packed a total of 209,952 meals. (Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette)

"The meals get where they're going," Ewing said. The meals, called MannaPack Rice, are scientifically formulated to meet the needs of a child, 8-13 years of age, suffering the effects of malnutrition.

Chad Riskus, a driver for BJ Transport out of Afton, Minnesota, delivered the ingredients for the mobile pack, a job he signs up for whenever he can.

"I love these mobile packs," he said, "I'm going to Oxford Sunday to do help set up a pack at Southern Valley Schools.

(Dawn Cribbs/McCook Daily Gazette)

The school officials designated Monday and Tuesday as student pack days to pack 100,000 meals. That's pretty amazing."

For more information on FMSC go online to fmsc.org.

Organizers of the McCook Mobile Pack for Feed My Starving Children wanted to restock shelves at the McCook Pantry while providing for more than 200,000 meals destined for countries around the world where 18,000 children die daily from starvation and malnutrition. As the first volunteers reported for duty, the collection begins. By the time the last volunteer left Saturday afternoon, the items collected wouldn't fit in a single camera frame.