It was hard to hear much over the chatter and Christmas music that filled the gymnasium.
A room full of volunteers, some as young as five-years old, clad in hairnets and armed with cups and ladles worked in an assembly-line fashion. First, into the bag went a package of vitamins. Next, a cup-full of soy. Then a scoop of dehydrated vegetables. Lastly, a cup-full of rice. The bags were then sealed and packaged, ready to send to those in crisis.
After a short time, the gong sounded once again and the room erupted into cheers. With the help of Rise Against Hunger, another several thousand meals had been assembled by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints from the New River Valley as part of an interactive food packaging experience.
“It was very fulfilling packaging that many meals and it made me feel like I made a difference in the life of people that are suffering,” Isaac Sudweeks, a teenage volunteer said. “It also made me feel like we were part of something larger because the company was very wide-spread.”
Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger-relief organization that distributes food and life-changing aid to the world’s most vulnerable. Their goal is to mobilize necessary resources to end hunger by 2030.
“I also liked how efficient the packaging process was,” Sudweeks said. On Saturday more than 120 church members worked for just over two hours. The result was 30,000 meals to give to the hungry.
Neal Henshaw, bishop of the Blacksburg ward for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, reached out to Rise Against Hunger to make the event happen. With donations from church-members, the money went to provide all of the meals and the packaging event. Rise Against Hunger puts on these packaging events of interactive meal packaging experiences at workplaces, schools, civic clubs or faith communities.
“Scoop after scoop of the same ingredient (into a bag, countless number of times may seem monotonous,” another volunteer, Nathan Bench, said. “But when considering each scoop is food for families in need it’s a great way to spend a few hours.”
— Submitted by Emilee Bench
Bench is a member of the church and a volunteer who works to strengthen relations between the church members of the area and the local community.
