Springmoor Welcomes Stop Hunger Now Back to Campus to Package an Additional 40,000 Meals

Springmoor residents, staff, and Stop Hunger Now
representatives package meals.

Springmoor residents and staff have come together to reach their goal of providing more than 40,000 additional meals to children around the world in under developed counties. Volunteers came out Friday, June 6 to help bag, measure, weigh, and box meals for Stop Hunger Now.  

Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief agency that strives to provide meals to children in orphanages, schools, and crisis-burdened areas around the world. Founded in 1998, it has mobilized more than 450,000 volunteers to send more than 145,000,000 meals to 65 countries. Working with these programs helps enhance lives by giving beneficiaries the opportunity to break the cycle of poverty through education, skills, development, and health care while also receiving much needed nutrition. Stop Hunger Now started their meal-packaging events in 2005.

This is Springmoor’s fourth year in helping with the meal-packaging program and the second meal-packaging event in 2014. Our original goal was to fundraise $14,000 to donate. We surpassed that goal quickly and ended up raising more than $20,000! With each meal costing only $.25, the money raised allowed Springmoor to package more than 80,000 meals!    The first packaging event was held in March and we packaged 43,832 meals. This time around we met our goal to package an additional 40,000 before 1pm thanks to those who came out and worked tirelessly all morning.

The packaging of these meals consists of four basic stations. The first station is where they fill the bags. Here, teams of 3-5 people put measured amounts of soy, dried vegetables, vitamins, flavoring, and rice into sealable bags.  After this, they are given to the weighing table. These volunteers make sure that the bags contain the right about of food before sending them off. They can add and take out ingredients as needed. After that, the bags are taken to be sealed. This makes sure the food stays fresh and sanitary until it gets to its desired location. These bags of food have a shelf life of around 2 years and have a serving size of 6 so the kids who receive them at schools have food to bring home to their families. 

Both the residents and staff that came out to help worked vigorously all morning, some working their whole shift without a break. When asked why she coordinates this event, Phyllis Mayo, chaplain at Springmoor, said, “There are many reasons, but one of the main ones is that we are entrusted with resources that can be shared with others who are in great need, need beyond our imagination. This is a “hands on” opportunity to help save the lives of people who otherwise cannot live with inadequate nourishment.”

Springmoor Life Care Retirement Community is a continuing care retirement community in beautiful Northwest Raleigh, North Carolina. To find out more about Springmoor, check out our website and find us on Facebook.