For Elgin's Salvation Army, million meal mission accomplished

Residents of Elgin, the Fox Valley and beyond: You can take a deep breath, pat each other on the back and unlace those bootstraps now.

Over the weekend, more than 4,000 volunteers packed more than 1 million meals to be delivered to earthquake survivors in Haiti.

The effort, which spanned nine hours Saturday and another five on Sunday, actually resulted in 1,040,920 meals that were assembled from volunteers mixing, bagging and boxing high-protein ready-to-cook meals, Elgin Salvation Army Major Ken Nicolai said this morning.

"It's a rewarding tired. We packed up everything," he said. "I didn't know you could get 4,000 volunteers over a weekend, but I should have known. Because of the economy, people are extra sensitive to those who are hurting. They want to feel productive."

Volunteers helping in two-hour shifts on Saturday assembled 610,000 packages of rice, soy, freeze-dried vegetables, chicken flavoring and 21 vitamins. Each meal was only 30 cents to prepare because of the volunteer labor and will feed six people for a day.

Saturday's load was immediately trucked to Miami and is expected to be in Haiti by Thursday, thanks to the Salvation Army's World Service Office.

Nicolai said 4,008 people signed up in advance to pack the meals at former Seigle's Home and Building Center, 1600 Big Timber Road, and Sunday saw a lot of walk-up volunteers as well.

Organizers worried a little going into Sunday because there were only five hours of packing instead of nine.

"We were doing the math and thought we might end up short," Nicolai said.

But some groups were extremely productive, with some people reporting that their group went through enough boxes for 1,200 meals.

"You could tell people felt like they accomplished something before they left," he said. "They wanted to get this done."

Nicolai also thanked the city of Elgin for its support as well as local businesses who donated in kind services.

Organizers also asked for people to bring a canned food item for local pantries and 3,123 items were collected.

The Salvation Army's food bank is always looking for help. For details, call (847) 741-2304.