Well, although I did get some crafty work done today, I decided that I wanted to let you all know about what I did tonight. My friend E turned 30 yesterday and invited a bunch of us to go to Feed My Starving Children to celebrate. I'd never been before but had been considering it as a family outing. Wow!! Not only was a good time had by all, but we made meals for 35 children for 1 whole year - in one hour!!

What is Feed My Starving Children you might be asking yourself. Well, taking this word for word from their website:

Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit. The approach is simple: children and adults alike hand-pack meals designed specially for starving children, and FMSC ships the meals to more than 50 countries around the world. Click here to learn more about FMSC and how you can become involved.

When we first arrived, we headed into the orientation room. We learned (0r were refreshed) about the disparity in the distribution of wealth in the world. The United States the average yearly income is $48,000. In Mexico it is about $2000. In Haiti, it is about $240. The United States and other 1st world countries (about 17% of the world) have almost 3/4 of the food in the world. Kids all over the world are slowly dying of starvation. FMSC provides meals for as many of these children as they can, working with other organizations to distribute the food. They provide meals for a child for the rest of their childhood, not just one random meal. This is something that they are very proud of - rightfully so.

The procedure for food packing was incredibly efficient. The entire group of volunteers numbered about 100 and we were able to pack for 1 hour. The meal consists of vegetarian chicken, dehydrated vegetables, soy and rice. The packing process goes like this:
scoop the food
pour it into the bag
weigh the bag (each should weigh between 380-400 g)
seal the bag
assemble all the bags and pack them up 36 to a box.

I did the last step, assembling the bags, counting them and boxing them. Between the two stations (there are 2 stations per work center - sharing a box packer) we packed 10 boxes. Other groups with more experience packed 12-14 boxes.

FMSC is rated very high on Charity Navigator, using over 90% of its funding to feed children. It was a very rewarding experience that I would recommend for families with children 4 and over. I think that Chip & I will be taking Boo and Bug sometime soon.