Packing food for starving children a family affair

Tag: Food Packing Box In many parts of the world food is in very short supply, and it hasbeen reported that 18,000 children die each day from starvation orstarvation related cases. Jim Russell's involvement with Feed My Starving Children beganalmost three years ago while he was visiting his daughter and herfamily in St. Paul, Minn. His 15-year-old grandson told him that he was volunteering to packfood for needy children as a public service project, and invitedhim to go along. Russell and his grandson helped to pack 5,000meals and Jim became totally hooked on the importance of becoming apart of this vital relief organization. He "talks-up" the programwhenever an opportunity presents itself at his church, and duringhis other volunteer activities, in an effort to recruit volunteersto help with the packing at mobile packing events that are held atlocal churches, synagogues, schools and corporations, and at thepermanent site in Aurora. "I love children, and I feel this is a worthy cause," Russell said."Packing food for Feed My Starving Children is something that thewhole family can get involved in, and is a way of teaching thechildren by example that it is important to help people in need." Feed My Starving Children was founded in 1987, and is a nonprofitChristian organization with headquarters in Brooklyn Park, Minn.Their mission is "Feeding God's Starving Children Hungry in Bodyand Spirit." Volunteers of all ages pack highly nutritious mealsfor severely malnourished children that are distributed in morethan 50 countries around the world. The meals consist of rice,textured soy protein, dehydrated vegetables, 20 vitamins andminerals with a vegetarian chicken flavoring, and each meal has allthe nutrients a starving child needs for an entire day. The meals cost 17 cents each, and the ingredients are purchasedentirely through donations. The meals are hand packaged and sealedin bags by volunteers who work in teams to measure and weigh theingredients, and then packed into boxes for shipping. Feed MyStarving Children partners with missionaries in over 50 countrieswho help assure that meals are given to children who need them themost, and are distributed in schools, orphanages, refugee camps,and relief centers in Haiti, Tanzania, Indonesia, Sudan, Cambodia,Peru, Swaziland, the Philippines, and dozens of other countries. Permanent packing locations are located in Brooklyn Park, Eagan,and Chanhassen, Minn.; a new location is open in Aurora, and plansare underway to open a site in Rolling Meadows by the end of 2008. Last year, 40 million meals were shipped and their goal is to ship55 million during 2008. Because all the packaging of the food isdone by volunteers, 95 percent of all donations received during2007-08 went directly to the feeding program. Russell is very active at St. Raymond's Catholic Church in MountProspect, where he serves as a minister of care and takes communionto the homebound, and as a bereavement minister of care, whichinvolves assisting families to plan funerals and assisting toconduct funerals. He also volunteers as a PADS (homeless shelter)volunteer.