By The Grand Rapids Press
April 04, 2009, 10:48PM
Photos by Emily Zoladz/The Grand Rapids Working in an assembly line to fill meal bags with chicken stock, rice, vegetables and soy for families in need Saturday at the Union Station building as part of Kiwanis One Day. Each bag contains about six adult meals and can serve as many as 12 children.GRAND RAPIDS -- More than 100 Kiwanis Club volunteers rolled up their sleeves and donned hair nets Saturday at Union Station to assemble 30,000 meal packets for area food banks.
The same thing was happening at 10 other sites across Michigan to observe Kiwanis One Day, an international effort whose goal is to provide 1 million hours of volunteer service worldwide that benefits children.
"My, this was a lot of fun," said the Rev. Robert C. Smith, 89, who filled bags from his wheelchair.
"I worked with the United Methodist Church's Commission on Relief and developed a passion for helping hungry people," he added.
Smith is a member of Golden K Kiwanis, a club of retirees.
Milwood Elementary students Michelle Akers, 10, Rasheida Cunningham, 12, and Kayla Haywood, 9, all of Kalamazoo, help load boxes of dinners for families in need Saturday outside the Union Station building in Grand Rapids. The girls came to help with K-Kids, a Kiwanis Club group, as part of Kiwanis One Day, when 30,000 meals were sent to area food banks.The Michigan clubs worked in partnership with Kids Against Hunger, an international campaign. The clubs hoped to package 300,000 meals to be distributed statewide.
Local volunteers divided 3,000 pounds of rice, 1,000 pounds of soy, 140 pounds of dried vegetables and 325 pounds of chicken flavoring into packages that would make a nutritionally complete casserole or soup, depending on the amount of water added.
"Some of the world's leading food scientists came up with this recipe," said Tifanie Dallen, lieutenant governor of Kiwanis Clubs in Grand Rapids, Holland and Muskegon.
"One packet can feed six adults and up to 12 children for about 28 cents," she added.
Ingredients that were not donated were purchased with money the clubs raised, Dallen said.
The youngest volunteer at the Grand Rapids site was 8-year-old Wyatt Atkins of Kalamazoo, who participated in a previous event to package meals for Kids Against Hunger.
"I was one who sealed the packages," Wyatt said. "I liked it more than sleeping in."
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Kids Against Hunger Great Lakes Coalition has packaged 5,132,592 meals since the fall of 2004. 1,846,152 of these were packaged in 2009. This year, 2010, KAHC volunteers have packaged 856,872 meals. Since 2004 over 43,028 volunteers have participated in KAHC packaging. KAHC has shipped over 1,000,000 meals to Haiti, through The United States Navy, Coast Guard, and other humanitarian groups. KAHC has shipped over 14,692 meals to the Dominican Republic, over 648,000 meals to Guatemala, and 108,000 to Baton Rouge, Louisiana as part of Hurricane Katrina relief effort. KAHC has sent 50,000 meals to Ghana, and 405,120 to Kenya Africa. KAHC has also shipped 200,000 meals to the following countries: Panama, Nicaragua, Columbia, Dominican Republic, Trinidad, Tobago, and French Guiana. We have shipped over 70,000 meals to Manila in the Philippine Islands. Finally KAHC has shipped over 1,655,528 meals to local community shelters & food depots in Michigan Indiana and Ohio through distribution channels like Our Lady of Fatima delivery systems.