What did you do on your Friday night?

I will share with you what we did with ours last night-hopefully to inspire you to maybe get in the ring and make a difference. Our small group came to the end of our study in August and as we looked ahead realized we had a funky timing weekend, so I threw out doing a service project together. I had heard about Feed My Starving Children during my time at North High and had always wanted to check it out. The group was more than enthusiastic to commit to this event-on a Friday night nonetheless. The 12 of us went not totally knowing what to expect, but left changed people.


This is a local organization that started right in our metro-Brooklyn Park. The heart of this organization is pure and productive. The staff Deb and Lori walked us through the steps to prepare us to make packet meals for starving children across the world. They educated us on where they go and how they get there. Once we got to our stations, 2 teams formed and the game was on to see who could make the most packets-our motivation being not just friendly competition, but for the kids. BAG-CHICKEN-VEGGIES-SOY-RICE!! was the chant heard for 45 straight minutes. There was a lot of competitive talk, funny quotes and amazement that we had our hands directly in changing the world. Chad was our box packer and Mayor Bryce was our warehouse man that rocked it when we needed replenishment. Before we started, Deb told us that it would be a good night if we did one box per person (36 meals per box). When we got everything cleaned up and in order-the staff unveiled to us how many boxes we did in 45 minutes.

In 45 minutes we packed 4,356 which equaled 21 boxes!! 21 boxes! That is not 1 box per person, but almost 2 boxes per person! We put together enough food to feed 12 kids for 1 year!!


Because of this high number, they welcomed us back to try and break the record-we are up for the challenge! This truly was a transformational experience for us all! We watched a thank you DVD from a group in Haiti that had us all in tears. One of the things that was startling to us was that FMSC has gotten to the point where they have enough volunteers to make their 2010 goal of 100 million packets, but since the prices have gone up (1-2000 lb bag of rice used to cost around $350 and now costs $900) they can't keep up financially.


As a group we hope to go back here! As Brevin starts getting older we have wanted to do service projects for his birthday-this is definitely on the list! You should definitely check it out for yourselves---it is an unforgettable experience AND you wear hot hairnets-oooh la la!