>Garber United Methodist Church is inviting the community to join Garber’s congregation in a special Stop Hunger Now meal packaging event on February 6th from 12:00 PM to 4:00 PM in Morris Hall in Garber’s Ministry Center, located at 4202 Country Club Road in Trent Woods.
Dr. John Check, Garber’s Senior Pastor, stated the church had originally scheduled a Stop Hunger Now meal packaging event with their Student Ministries group, but decided to make it a community-wide effort, in light of the tremendous need for meals for victims of the earthquake in Haiti. “Our goal is to package 40,000 meals for Haiti.on that Saturday”.
According to Dr. Check, Stop Hunger Now is an international relief organization that coordinates the distribution of food and other life-saving aid around the world. Stop Hunger Now’s meal packaging program provides volunteers the opportunity to package dehydrated, high protein and highly nutritious meals that are used in crisis situations and in school feeding program for schools and orphanages in developing countries around the world. Currently, the children of three orphanages that Garber supports are being sustained by Stop Hunger Meals.
In asking for volunteers from the community for the meal packaging, Associate Pastor Kent Smith stated that volunteers will have one hour shifts to package the meals, which are dehydrated, fortified rice-soy meals containing over 20 vitamins and minerals especially formulated for the undernourished. Stop Hunger Now provides these ingredients but needs financial support to keep this program running. For this reason, he explained “we are also encouraging volunteers to donate $25 towards the overall cost of the meals. Each packaged meal costs about .25 cents and provides a person with much needed nutrition.” The deadline to volunteer is January 29th.
To volunteer for this Stop Hunger Now meal packaging event, to donate to Stop Hunger Now for Haiti or to learn more about Stop Hunger Now, call the church at (252) 637-4022.