Lend a hand to feed the hungry
Have you ever gone to sleep hungry, wondering from where your next meal will come?
Probably not, but make no mistake, real hunger exists, both here in San Diego County and abroad.
The nonprofit, locally based Family & Friends Community Connection has been doing something about that for over a decade.
On Saturday, Sept. 8 F&FCC will be sponsoring its 40th food-packing event and will need 1,200 local volunteers to prepare about 200,000 meals that will be sealed, shipped and delivered to hungry families. One-third of the boxes will be distributed in the San Diego area, the others will be shipped to Tanzania, Africa.
The packing event will be held from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the parking lot of the Poway Walmart store on Community Road. The event will immediately follow the popular annual Poway Days Parade.
Volunteers need to register online at ffccsd.org to sign up for one-hour shifts. Upon arrival, the volunteers are assigned to six-member teams to scoop dehydrated vegetables, vitamins and minerals, chicken flavoring, along with rice into clear packets, which are then sealed and prepared for shipment. Recipients boil the bag in hot water. Each bag feeds six people.
Over the years F&FCC volunteers have packed a total of more than 8 million meals to help people who have survived a wide array of natural disasters or lack of funds due to tough economic times. Meals have been distributed in Tanzania, Haiti, Japan, Honduras and the Dominican Republic. An estimated 900,000 meals have been given to San Diego’s homeless.
Poway resident Phil Harris (the honorary grand marshal of this year’s Poway Days Parade) started F&FCC 15 years ago as an effort to clean up trash around a school. The food-packing events began in December 2006. Since then the organization’s efforts have expanded to include feeding the hungry and sending assistance teams to disaster-stricken countries. The group has also started Fight Against Hunger Clubs at several local high school campus. In fact, the 2-to-3 p.m. shifts on Sept. 8 are reserved just for high school students to prepare meal bags.
Anyone, young or old, is welcome to come and help out on Sept. 8. Volunteers are also encouraged to bring over-the-counter medicines that are badly needed in Haiti (see the list on the group’s website) and monetary donations to help defray the costs of the raw materials used in the meals (each meal costs 25 cents).
If the Sept. 8 goal is met, 1.2 million hungry people will be able to sleep one night with their stomachs full. It’s not the answer to world hunger, but it’s another step in the right direction.
Related posts:
- Ex-Charger John Carney selected as parade grand marshal
- Chamber mixer kicks off annual Poway Days fun
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