Volunteers at North Central prepare food for hungry

In a gym more accustomed to track meets, thousands of volunteers held a pack meet Sunday.

Naperville-based Feed The Need!, a local coalition of churches, businesses and civic organizations filled North Central College's Residence Hall/Recreation Center.

More than 4,000 volunteers prepared packages of food containing nearly 800,000 meals for hungry children around the world, including about 270,000 meals for Ebola-stricken countries in Africa.

It was the fourth annual MobilePak held in the area but the first time at North Central College, which cooperated in the effort and contributed several student volunteers.

Les May, project coordinator for Feed The Need!, which raised the funds and the volunteers for the event, said the target age of the children is up to 5 years old in almost 70 countries.

The packs were provided by the group Feed My Starving Children, based in Coon Rapids, Minnesota.

Carrying the trademarked brand MannaPack, these pouches contain a mixture of rice, extruded soy nuggets to provide protein, vitamins, minerals and dehydrated vegetables.

May said the meals are provided free by Feed My Starving Children, which finds its clients through such conduits as missionaries, hospitals and nongovernment organizations.

“Each meal costs us 22 cents to produce,” May said of what his group pays, which amounts to a little less than $160,000. Feed The Need!'s church partners account for $110,000 of that, with the rest raised through donations.

It is then directly delivered through a distribution network, where it gets to the children.

“The support from the community has been just phenomenal,” said Gary Olson, co-senior pastor at Good Shepherd Church in Naperville. “The number of churches, the number of civic organizations, everybody is getting behind it.”

North Central College's support included student volunteers like Samantha Neahring, a junior who hails from Manlius, Illinois.

Neahring, an intern at the Ministry and Service office on campus, said she has been registering volunteers for about a month and rallying students to sign up. The effort has resulted in more than 300 volunteers from the college.

“I just really love serving other people. It's one of my huge passions,” she said. “Everyone is so uplifting and encouraging for this event.”

Whitney Roberts, assistant director of Ministry and Service, said, “We have been kind of doing a marketing push for probably the last three or four months of getting people registered. We're really excited. I think it's been really great to see our community step up to the plate.”

Roberts said Feed The Need! approached the school about a partnership about a year and a half ago.

“The college has been on board with the mission of Feed My Starving Children for a long time,” Roberts said. “We have lots of student organizations and athletic teams that already partner and go serve at their space.”

She said fitting in the event with other campus activities was a bit of a challenge, as there was a large regional track meet in the space up until the setup on Saturday night.

Volunteers assembled early Sunday morning, receiving hair nets in accordance with federal guidelines for food manufacture.

They gathered around tables, where they worked assembly-line fashion, scooping the ingredients that were ultimately funneled into a heat-sealed bag. Their cheers could frequently be heard echoing throughout the facility as they joyfully completed their tasks.

“I think it's a great cause. You can't be any closer to people in need,” said Jim Chandler of Des Plaines. “This goes right to someone. You're not there, giving it to them. But you're making it, boxing it and sending it. That's as close as you can get.”

Andy Carr, vice president of development and marketing for Feed My Starving Children, who was on hand Sunday, said scientists from two companies in the Twin Cities area, Cargill and General Mills, provided input on the formula.

He explained that they are like manna from heaven for the children in these countries, noting that between more than 6,200 children die each day of starvation and malnutrition-related illnesses, according to the World Health Organization.

Carr said his Minneapolis-area organization will send nearly 230 million meals around the world to the 70 partner countries.

The food from Sunday's event, he said, will go back to his organization's warehouse in Aurora, after which it will be shipped to places like Haiti, Nicaragua and Liberia.

They will benefit children like Omar in Nicaragua, a child Feed My Starving Children encountered four or five years ago and was profiled in a short video shown to volunteers Sunday morning.

“He was a child that was literally starving to death,” Carr said. “Omar was able to get into a program and be put on a regular routine of our food.”

The result shown was a dramatic transformation from a child with protruding ribs to a healthy-looking youngster.

“This is a scientifically engineered food. You can't send a starving kid a Twinkie or a granola bar,” Carr said. “Their bodies are in such a desperate state that they need the micronutrients, vitamins, proteins that are found in this food.”