RELIGION: Take Away Hunger packing event planned Sunday at Fairfield church

A Take Away Hunger food packing event is set for Sunday, Sept. 29, at the Word of Life Lutheran Church gym in Fairfield.

Volunteers are needed to help pack 25,000 meals of a black bean, rice, soy and vitamin casserole for distribution to hungry children locally and overseas by Take Away Hunger, a food relief organization based in Mt. Pleasant.

The first shift begins at 1 p.m., and the second starts at 2 p.m., with packing ending at 4 p.m.

'Volunteers can come and go as necessary and work as little or as long as they like,” said organizer Don Henderson.

'This will be our 15th packing sponsored by a group of six area churches,” said Henderson.

Those churches include Fairfield Friends, First Baptist, First Presbyterian, First Christian (Disciples of Christ), Word of Life, all in Fairfield, and Faith United Methodist in Libertyville.

Since 2014, during the previous 14 packing events, the group has assembled 388,356 meals. Those meals have been distributed to various disaster locations in the United States and to Third World Counties, such as Guatemala and Haiti. Seven thousand meals were delivered to outreaches in Marshalltown and Pella after those communities were hit by tornadoes in 2018.

Also during 2018, 700,000 meals were delivered to Texas flood victims, 500,000 went to Oklahoma for tornado victims, 200,000 went to North and South Carolina flood victims, and 261,000 were picked up by Convoy of Hope for delivery to Central America. All totaled, about 1.7 million meals were provided through the Take Away Hunger warehouse in Mt. Pleasant.

Since January of 2019, 689,040 meals have been shipped to Texas, Oklahoma, North and South Carolina, Haiti, Ghana Africa, and El Salvador.

Thousands more are distributed to area outreach centers and food banks, including Tolsons Community Center and Fellowship Cup, both in Mt. Pleasant, and The Lord's Cupboard in Fairfield.

Take Away Hunger is a 501c nonprofit overseen by Don and Sandee Fields of Brighton. Their office and warehouse is in Mt. Pleasant.

'Sandee and I want to thank all of you who have invested your time, energy and finances to make all of this happen,” said Don Fields. 'We want to encourage everyone to keep up the great work as we are needing to produce more meals now than ever as the need continues to grow.”

'Everyone is invited; bring a friend,” said Henderson. 'It's so good to be a part of the family of God.”