Supporting an organization which provides food to Third World countries has been an amazing process and ministry of the Indian Falls United Methodist Church, said Pastor Karen Grinnell.
The pastor said she first learned about Rise Against Hunger at a United Methodist conference in Syracuse.
The church has various fundraisers each year and accepts donations for the meals. This is the third year the church has raised money to purchase food and solicited volunteers to pack more than 10,000 meals.
Each meal costs 31 cents, said Andrew Moser, who came from the Greater Pittsburgh Region, where Rise Against Hunger is headquartered.
Rise Against Hunger International, a nonprofit hunger relief organization, was founded by a Methodist minister from Virginia in 1998, and since that time, more than 450 million meals have been packaged and shipped, Moser said. Food is sent to orphanages, clinics and schools in 74 countries, he said.
“We try to create opportunities in places where opportunities don’t exist,” he said.
More than 50 volunteers on Saturday came from local churches, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts and the Oakfield-Alabama Girls’ Basketball Team.
All meals are identical and include rice, a vegetable mix, soy protein and a vitamin packet.
Kraft-Heinz is Rise Against Hunger’s biggest partner, Moser said. The company makes all the vitamin packages and donates them.
(Photos by Virginia Kropf.)
Top photo: Students from Oakfield-Alabama’s Girls’ Basketball Team were among more than 50 volunteers who packed 10,152 meals at the Indian Falls United Methodist Church on Saturday for Rise Against Hunger. Here, one cup of rice is measured and poured into a pouch to be packed with soy protein and a vitamin packet.
Andrew Moser, who runs Rise Against Hunger in the Greater Pittsburgh Region, explains the process for packing meals to dozens of volunteers Saturday at Indian Falls United Methodist Church. The church packed 10,152 meals, which will be sent to impoverished countries.
Pastor Karen Grinnell from Indian Falls United Methodist Church and Celinda McQuistion, who chairs the church’s participation in Meals Against Hunger, watch as volunteers get ready to pack more than 10,000 meals on Saturday morning.
