What an extraordinary event UCP hosted on May 6, 2012!
On that Sunday we hosted a Stop Hunger Now meal packaging event - and we did it - we packaged 20,000 meals.
Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief organization that coordinates the distribution of food and other life-saving aid around the world. The meals combine rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a flavoring mix including 21 essential vitamins and minerals into small packets. These meals have a shelf-life of 5 years and transport easily.
Around 100 volunteers from within our congregation and the surrounding community spent a couple of hours packaging 20,000 meals to be used in crisis situations and in feeding programs for schools and orphanages in Haiti. Some folks filled the bags via funnels, passed those bags to the weighing and sealing folks who then moved the bags to the boxing stations. After that they were loaded onto the truck bound for the warehouse in Ashburn.
In the weeks to come, we will be notified regarding where our boxes are so we can track them on the way to Haiti and into schools.
To help us kick off this event, we welcomed home the Reverend Janice Rivero, who, beginning in 1967, attended UCP services during her years at Herndon High School. She sang in the UCP choir, directed the children’s choir, and was involved in Youth Group. Jan is now a United Methodist Minister and University Program Director for the Stop Hunger Now organization and prepared us for the afternoon activity with an inspirational sermon at the morning worship services.
This was a wonderful, hands-on mission event to begin the use of our big, beautiful new sanctuary! We had plenty of space and great fellowship together! There were a few hairnet issues as you can see in the photos here but everyone seemed to have a great time.