Kids Against Hunger

Three hundred students in grades K to 12 and several adult volunteers joined forces to “feed God’s starving children” on Tuesday, March 9th as part of the Lutheran Schools Week celebration. The theme for Lutheran Schools Week was “Securing Each Child’s Future for a Life of Service.” With the recent earthquake in Haiti, we felt this project really tied into the Lutheran Schools Week theme.

Students and teachers donned “Kids Against Hunger” aprons and hair nets and packed 50,976 meals. Participating schools were St James Lutheran, Northrop; St Paul Lutheran, Fairmont; St Paul's Lutheran, Truman and Martin Luther High School.

When training the students for the food pack Tim Stromer, Division Director of "Kids Against Hunger" said, "This servant event is a testimony to the God each one of you serve".

The MLHS National Honor Society, Student Council and Principals from the four Lutheran schools coordinated the event. All students were challenged to raise $50 individually with some students raising as much as $400 individually. Parent-Teacher Leagues of each school provided support to help the students reach their goals. Over $12,000 was raised to cover the cost of the food that was packed that day.

“This servant event is a testimony to the God we serve and learn about everyday in our Lutheran schools."

The food packs have a chicken flavored base filled with vitamins, dried vegetables, soy protein and rice. It is a recipe that is easily prepared anywhere--just add water. Rice is a world-wide accepted food. Each pack is carefully weighed, heat sealed and then packed into boxes for shipping.

MLHS students and teachers were trained to oversee the packs. The boys took care of all the heavy lifting. Rows and rows of tables filled with food lined the gym.

MLHS students were fantastic leaders for the elementary students!

The first group of enthusiastic workers came from St Paul Lutheran School in Fairmont.

The assembly line method was an efficient process. Thank you teachers and students from St Paul, Fairmont for your hard work!

Teachers and students from St Paul's Lutheran School, Truman took over the next shift of the pack. We were on a roll!

The big boys showed the little boys how to be servants.

Student and teachers from St James Lutheran School, Northrop paid attention to the training session and then got to work!

Over 250 boxes were filled with 50,976 meals to be shipped to Haiti. An assembly line was started to move the boxes to the truck.

Thank you to Wal Mart for donating the trucking of the food to MLHS and the packed food to the shipping site.

Samples of the food we packed were prepared for all the volunteers. Each meal costs $.23.

We would like to give a big thank you to: Tim Stromer, Director of Kids Against Hunger, Mankato and his fantastic staff, Walmart for donating the trucks to transport the food, all of the students who raised the funds and everyone who donated and volunteered their time to package the food.

Every six seconds a child dies from hunger or hunger related diseases. Hunger isn’t just a problem in other countries, one out of eight children in the U.S. go to bed hungry every night. We want to encourage you to become involved with feeding families around the world…and around the corner. You can become a part of the solution to stopping world hunger. For more information about “Kids Against Hunger” go to www.kidsagainsthunger.org.