By Laura McAlister
Journal Editor
In two days, five Over the Mountain churches hope to provide some 500,000 meals to children in Honduras.
Canterbury United Methodist Church, along with Vestavia Hills United Methodist, Brookwood Baptist, Saint Luke’s Episcopal and Saint Stephen’s Episcopal churches, will host a Stop Hunger Now food packing event Feb. 15-16.
The event at Canterbury Hall will run from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. By the time it’s over, workers will have a truck filled with 500,000 meals that will be distributed to schoolchildren in Honduras, said Rachel Estes, director of outreach and missions for Canterbury UMC,
“We’re just really excited about this because No. 1, we’re feeding children through school,” Rachel said. “This helps stop the cycle of poverty.”
Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief organization based in Raleigh, N.C. For 25 cents a meal, the program delivers nutritious meals to schoolchildren in developing countries. Volunteers pack the dehydrated, high-protein meals and vitamin packs that are then distributed by Stop Hunger Now to people in need.
“I tell people it’s the cheapest and best dinner party you’ll ever throw,” Rachel said. “The meals are 25 cents each, so for $25, you can feed 100 people.”
The meals prepared at Canterbury will provide a school in Honduras with five months’ worth of meals, which is another benefit of the program, Rachel pointed out.
“Five months of consistent nutrition really engages the brain,” she said. “These kids will no longer be thinking about hunger. These nutrients really help the developmental bump.”
This is the second year Canterbury has hosted a food packing event for Stop Hunger Now. Rachel said the church learned about the organization through a book, “End Hunger Now.”
When the church first approached the organization, Rachel said, Stop Hunger Now suggested a goal of packing 20,000 meals.
“I said, how about 50,000?” she said. “They said 25,000, so we asked them how many meals it would take to fill a shipping container.”
The answer is 142,560, and that’s how many meals the Canterbury congregation packed.
This year, the goal has increased to 500,000, which with the help of the four other churches, Rachel has no doubt they will achieve.
Packing stations will be set up in Canterbury Hall, and Rachel said there is something for all ages to do.
“Essentially we’ll have an assembly line,” she said. “We’ll have somebody who’s measuring out the food, and another who’s taking it to be weighed and someone else who is taping them up. It’s so amazing and so cool. Anybody from age 3 to 93 can do something.”
In addition to needing volunteers for the packing event, Rachel said they are also accepting donations for the cost of the meals.
For more information on the two-day meal packing event at Canterbury and Stop Hunger Now, visit canterburyumc.org.
