Published Friday, June 18, 2010
Hundreds of volunteers work Thursday to pack enough food for 200,000 meals at the Classic Center during the annual Methodist conference. Photo by Richard Hamm.
The crash of a gong reverberated through the Classic Center every 15 minutes Thursday, causing the crowd to cheer.
They knew the sound meant another 5,000 children would be fed.
In town for the annual meeting of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, volunteers from across the state worked to package 200,000 meals for hungry children Thursday.
Sponsored with an anonymous $50,000 donation to the feeding group Stop Hunger Now, teens and adults crowded around long tables and worked in an assembly line to measure and package dehydrated meals that will go next week to feed school children in Nicaragua.
"It's a tremendously efficient way to carry out our mission to God's hurting people," said Lance Sligar, a convention delegate from Norcross.
Sligar participated in one of five two-hour packing sessions when 100 to 300 volunteers at a time boxed up 40,000 meals each session.
The prepackaged meals of rice, vegetables, soy protein and chicken flavoring include 21 essential vitamins and minerals chosen especially for malnourished people.
Each reusable plastic bag provides servings for six people, has a shelf life of three to five years and costs about 25 cents to make.
Each time a pallet of 5,000 meals was ready to be carted to a waiting truck, event organizers banged a gong, but volunteers' cheers quickly drowned out the sound.
"Each time I hear the gong, it makes me want to do more, go faster," said Ariana Allison, 15, who came with an enrichment program at her Atlanta high school to participate.
Stop Hunger Now tried to inspire that kind of enthusiasm.
"What we're trying to do here is create a sense of excitement," said founder and President Ray Buchanan. "When these people go back to their church, they'll want to work to end hunger abroad and in their own communities, and that's how we're going to change the world."
About 90 percent of the meals Stop Hunger Now packages go to schools, while the remaining 10 percent gets distributed in disaster areas. The organization already had more than 1.5 million packaged meals on the ground in schools in Haiti before the country's devastating earthquake in January. Those meals were immediately distributed to victims, along with 4.5 million more the group was able to send in the first few weeks following the disaster.
Each organization that receives meals from Stop Hunger Now is vetted by the group in a four-month process that ensures shipments will reach the people the group has agreed to feed, according to program coordinator Mickey Horner. Adequate storage and access to clean water also is necessary because the food is dehydrated.
The Methodist conference gave the opportunity for a massive Stop Hunger Now project, but local people and churches already work to feed people here.
"There are several churches and organizations here in Athens that feed the hungry in their own backyard," said John Page, associate pastor at Athens First United Methodist Church. Page worked over the past six months to pull together volunteers and resources for the event. "Hopefully, this will help connect them to the need to feed the hungry internationally, too."
While the Methodists packed meal boxes for three of Thursday's sessions, Athens locals manned the other two shifts.
Betty King, 64, learned about the project from HandsOn Northeast Georgia and drove to Athens from her home in Lexington.
"I was thinking of how many thousands of meals we were making, and it's just amazing," King said. "I packaged food before in Oglethorpe County, but I've never seen anything like this."
Holly Haynes, 32, came with 30 volunteers from Grove Level Baptist Church in Maysville after her youth pastor told her about the event.
"There are a lot of children that are going to be fed now," said Haynes, who has two young daughters at home in Baldwin. "As a mother, that's a good feeling."
Thursday's event was the largest that the Raleigh, N.C.-based hunger relief group has hosted in Georgia in its 12-year history. Smaller events at churches and Rotary clubs with around 40 volunteers have sent 10,000 meals to schools and disaster areas across the world. Stop Hunger Now plans to open an Atlanta facility by summer's end that will help local groups raise the money for the packaged meals.
"We could package a lot more meals mechanically, but the only way we're going to end hunger is to create a movement," Buchanan said. "These volunteers now have the beginnings of an education that can make a big difference at home and abroad."
Stop Hunger Now plans to hold another packaging event at next year's conference in Athens, though it may be the last for the Methodist conference if organizers determine the Classic Center isn't big enough for the group.
Roughly 2,800 people attend the conference each year, and organizers are using every available space in the Classic Center and its adjacent building.
"We're happy to be in Athens for this conference. The city is so receptive, and we hope in some small way we can be a blessing back to the community," Page said.
Information about organizing your own Stop Hunger Now event can be found at www.stophungernow.org/Atlanta.
Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Friday, June 18, 2010
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