Naperville area swim team packs food for the poor

Twelve-year-old Mitch Kinn knew the boxes of food he helped pack were meant for starving children.

He just didn't realize how thin or how desperate their situations were until he saw the images himself.

"Just to think about how many lives were being touched by the boxes of food we helped pack," Mitch said. "I was expecting to see pictures of people looking hungry, but the video we watched was shocking."

Mitch joined about 130 members of the Naperville-area Maverick Swim Club and their family at an Aurora warehouse Saturday to help pack food to be sent to developing countries. In just over two hours time, the group packed over 20,000 simple dry meals - each one costing only about 17 cents to produce - that will help feed roughly 57 starving children for a year.

The meals will then be shipped abroad by Feed My Starving Children, a Minnesota-based charitable organization with offices in Aurora. In total, the group ships about 43 million of the simple dry-packed meals for children around the world, according to the group's Web site.

David Lullo, president of the swim club's parent group, said the volunteer effort was one of several events organized by the swim club as a way to teach its members about the value of giving back to the community.

"Right off the bat we saw a video of what some of these kids are going through," Lullo said. "Everybody came away feeling like they knew a little bit more about the plight of these people half a world away."

Lexi Nash, a 15-year-old Naperville North High School sophomore, spent the evening pouring cups of rice and soy into bags with her friends.

"It was really interesting to know that in just a couple hours we could make enough boxes of food to feed all these people," Lexi said. "It makes you think about how much we take for granted."