by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Within a couple of hours, about 250 people succeeded in filling and packing 34,992 food pouch bags at Sartell Middle School for the Kids Fighting Hunger program.
The ambitious project began when the student council decided it would be a good thing to do as a volunteer community-service project and approached Lori Dornburg, academic extension coordinator, who called Cathy Wogen, executive director of Kids Fighting Hunger.
After school was let out on April 15, students gathered in the south gym, donned hairnets and got right to work. They were joined by teachers, parents and other volunteers. All told, 180 students participated, along with 40 non-students.
The gym was a flurry of activity as groups of students at tables started scooping ingredients from boxes with measuring cups, then pouring contents into funnels, which directed the food ingredients into one plastic bag after another. The ingredients included rice, soy, dehydrated vegetable bits and a powdered mixture of 21 vitamins and nutrients.
One package of the food, when added to water, is enough to feed a family threatened with malnutrition or starvation for one entire day.
Last year, the St. Cloud-based Kids Fighting Hunger chapter sent 700,000 food packages to people in many countries, such as Sierra Leone in West Africa. Those packages were assembled by 2,700 volunteers in schools, churches and organizations throughout central Minnesota.
Wogen, the executive director, sat down for an interview with the Sartell Newsleader during the event at the middle school.
Fighting for Hunger, she said, partners with an organization called “Children of the Nations” in Washington, D.C., which determines needs for the food-packaging program, ships the food and makes sure it gets to places in need without it being waylaid, such as by marauding militias.
A train boxcar, Wogen noted, can hold about 285,000 of the meals. Wogen, who is a part-timer, is the only employee of the organization. All the others are unpaid volunteers. The effort is paid for entirely through donations from churches, schools, businesses and individuals.
The local chapter of Fighting Against Hunger was established 13 years ago and was originally based in Sauk Rapids. Just last August, its office relocated to St. Cloud.
To donate, send a check made out to “Kids Fighting Hunger” and send it to Kids Fighting Hunger, P.O. Box 7550, St. Cloud, Minn. 56302.
Morgan Gefre (left) and Sophie Klemp are two of hundreds of students and adults who packed bags of food for the Kids Fighting Hunger program April 15 at Sartell Middle School.
Teamwork counts when lifting a heavy bag of rice at the Kids Fighting Hunger project April 15 at Sartell Middle School. From left to right are ninth-grade students Sarah Schmitz, Tarah Rosendahl and Taelin Marthaler.
Three fifth-grade students measure out ingredients into a food pouch during a massive Kids Fighting Hunger project April 15 at Sartell Middle School. From left to right are David Binsfeld, Shea Stuckey and Carleena Byrd.
