Stop Hunger Now

 This year the kids and I volunteered with Stop Hunger Now.  The area churches (including ours) have been participating in this day of service for three years now, but this was our first time volunteering.  The goal of the program is to raise money to provide food for people in developing countries and then volunteer to pack the meal packets.  This was such an amazing experience.  I was in awe by how well-run the process was.  There were three shifts of volunteers.  Volunteers from our church were among those working the first shift.  Each person had a job.  Some held the meal bags under a funnel.  Others measured and poured into the bags food staples such as rice, beans, and grain.  Completed bags were put into trays which were picked up by "runners" and brought to the front tables to be weighed, sealed, and put into boxes.  Owen and Olivia were runners.  They walked around the room bringing empty trays and taking full trays to the proper destinations.  They did a really good job.  I have had several people comment on how well they did- which is good because they were pretty much unsupervised by me.  I was way too busy with my job- which was weighing the bags.  Mama, Quincy, and the Brooker family were at the table with me.  After weighing the bags, we handed them to Quincy who sealed them.  In our 1.5 hour shift we packaged something like 35,000 meals.  It was crazy.  I'm not sure what the final meal count was.  Hannah and her girls worked the last shift, and she told me but I forgot.  It was over 100,000 meals.  This was an amazing experience, and I hope that we get to participate again next year.