Feeding Starving Children Around The World

From February 3-7, something amazing happened in Palmetto Bay. Volunteers joined together and created more than 2.5 million meals for starving children around the world. It happened when Christ Fellowship Palmetto Bay opened its doors to Feed My Starving Children, a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding starving kids in nearly 70 countries.

Sammy Flores, the campus Pastor, remarked, "We are so proud to be a part of this great cause.  We hosted four six-hour shifts of people 24-hours-a-day all week. Each shift is producing what is called a MannaPack, a sealed plastic bag of specially-formulated food. Each shift produced enough food to feed 100 kids for a year!" In the end, the project exceeded its goal of 544,000 MannaPacks, reaching 560,000 before running out of raw food material.

Brooklyn Meeker, team lead of one of the shifts, explained, "We have four ingredients that are poured, measured, mixed and then packed in sterile conditions using our human assembly lines. Its quite fun and efficient."

Volunteer Ron Kopplow prepares rice for measuring

Each MannaPack produces five meals worth of nutritious food. Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) has worked to develop the food mixture so it would be easy and safe to transport, simple to make with only boiling water, and culturally acceptable worldwide. The MannaPack consists of: (a) Rice, the most widely accepted grain around the world, (b) extruded soy nuggets, providing maximum protein at lowest cost, (c) vitamins, minerals and a vegetarian flavoring to give growing children the critical nutritional elements they need and (d) dehydrated vegetables for flavor and nutrition.

Since the program's inception, FMSC has delivered more than a billion meals. This year alone, they will serve 250-million meals to kids. With the success of the FMSC and Christ Fellowship partnership, Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) is looking to team up and produce MannaPacks in the Miami area year-round.

Besides feeling good, being part of community and feeding hungry kids, each student also earned community service hours for their efforts.

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