Community Corner

Downtown Baptist Church Offers Services to Hunger Relief Agency

Members of the congregation packaged more than 10,000 meals for Stop Hunger Now

About 120 members of Downtown Baptist Church packaged 10,000 meals for international hunger relief agency Stop the Hunger last week in a charitable effort that involved congregants from age three to 92.

Each of the 120 or so participants had a task to help Stop the Hunger in its efforts to bring meals to countries ravaged by disaster. Most of the meals packaged by St. Joseph’s went to Haiti, according to Christina Taylor, chairwoman of the Missions Committee.

“For every 1,000 meals that we boxed up and took out, a child hit a gong,” Taylor said. “It was a really empowering, community involvement event.”

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Raleigh, N.C.-based Stop the Hunger offers the food, preparation and training to enable volunteers to set up an assembly line system and put together the meals.

The boxed meals, which are largely made up of dried vegetables, soy protein, rice and a vitamin packet, are then gathered by Stop the Hunger, sent to schools, which then cook them for 20 minutes when ready to eat. Each package has about six servings of the meal.

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“It was pretty amazing,” Taylor said. “It really got the congregation involved in a new way.”

 


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