RELIGION BRIEFS: Take Away Hunger food-packing Sunday

Volunteers needed for Take Away Hunger food packing event

A group of six area churches is having its 14th food-packing session Sunday afternoon in the Word of Life Lutheran Church gym.

Volunteers will be packing food for Take Away Hunger.

The first shift will start packing at 1 p.m., with the second shift starting at 2:30 p.m.; although volunteers are welcome to work for as short or as long as they would like, plus come and go as necessary. Packing should end by 4 p.m.

'The goal is to pack 22,000 meals of a black bean, rice, soy and vitamin casserole,” said Don Henderson, one of the organizers from First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). 'Everyone is invited; bring a friend. It's so good to be a part of the family of God.”

Volunteers also are needed for about one hour Saturday beginning at 10 a.m. to help unload the supplies, set up tables and equipment and assemble boxes at the Word of Life Church.

Volunteers also are needed at the end of the packing event to take down the tables and equipment.

According to Henderson, the group of churches has packed a total of 366,000 meals in its 13 previous packing sessions, and those meals have been distributed to various disaster locations in the U.S. and to Third World countries, such as Guatemala and Haiti. Plus, 7,000 meals were delivered to outreaches in Marshalltown and Pella after tornadoes last summer.

The participating churches, in addition to First Christian Church and Word of Life Church, are: Fairfield Friends Church, First Baptist Church, First Presbyterian Church, all in Fairfield, and Faith United Methodist Church in Libertyville.

Take Away Hunger is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization overseen by Don and Sandee Fields of Brighton, whose office and warehouse is in Mt. Pleasant.

During 2018, the Mt. Pleasant warehouse delivered: 700,000 meals to Texas flood victims; 500,000 meals to Oklahoma to be distributed by North Star Bridge Outreach to tornado victims; 200,000 meals to North and South Carolina flood victims; and 261,000 meals were picked up by Convoy of Hope in November for delivery to Central America. All totaled, about 1.7 million meals were provided through the Take Away Hunger warehouse in Mt. Pleasant.

For information, call First Christian Church, the designated Take Away Hunger contact for Jefferson County, at 472-2520 or visit the website www.takeawayhunger.com.