Community Service Post 2

I volunteered a total of 3.5 hours at Feed My Starving Children in two shifts- April 27th from 2-4pm(John Schmelzel, Libertyville Site Supervisor, at jschmelzel@fmsc.org or (847) 984-3846) and May 2nd from 8-9:30pm (Josh Rockett, Schaumburg Site Supervisor, at jrockett@fmsc.org or (847) 519-9610). I went with my boyfriend and best friend and it was fun! We packed food for starving children in places like Africa. When we got there we watched an educational video about how many hungry children there really are in the world, and the kind of work that Feed My Starving Children has done to help. It was incredibly sad, but motivational as well because since this non-profit organization began the percentage of starving children in the world has dramatically decreased. After the video, we were given instruction about how to pack the food and about the different kind of jobs there were-warehouse, food pours, baggers, sealers, labelers. We were told we had to be extremely clean and careful not to contaminate the food. In one bag of food there are vitamins, vegetables, soy, and rice. Each little bag we packed had 6 meals in it. My job was pouring the rice in the bag, and my best friend held the bag as we poured food in and then gave it to the sealer. My boyfriend did the warehouse job of walking around and refilling everyone's empty food and carrying the finished boxes, with a total of 28 bags in it, to be sent away. There was fun music playing and it was like a competition with other tables to see which table could pack the most boxes. Time went by pretty quickly and it was really easy work. Afterward, everyone cleans up and then there is an optional prayer over the boxes. After that you learn how many boxes you packed, and watch another video showing the effect Feed My Starving Children has had in so many kids' lives. Typically groups pack over 50 boxes, but the second time I volunteered there was only 15 or so of us so we packed around 24. I also got to taste a sample of the meals at the end! I liked that they did that because it was nice to know what we were sending off, and it wasn't half bad for such a simple and cheap meal! It was a really positive experience and I definitely felt like I was making a difference. I would love to go back over the summer and bring my family!