Barrington area students pack food for less fortunate
St. Anne School fifth graders visited Feed My Starving Children in Aurora last week where they packed food to feed the hungry.
“Our students packed 10,584 bags of food in two hours,” said teacher Anne Rometty. “This is enough to feed 29 children for an entire year. It is truly amazing.”
Feed My Starving Children is a nonprofit Christian organization that feeds hungry children in nearly 70 countries. With the help of food scientists from major food companies, they developed a food mixture that would be easy and safe to transport, simple to make with only boiling water and culturally acceptable worldwide.
As part of their Social Studies curriculum, St. Anne students were not only able to help children their age somewhere in the world, but they also learned about the country they were sending the food.
“They learn about such things as literacy rates, average income, poverty rates,” Rometty said. “It not only shows how fortunate our students are, but how important our service is.”
“It was inspiring,” said fifth grader Maria Fier. “You can really make a difference and help someone live another day.”
Classmate John Hegarty said he thinks this was the best service project St. Anne’s has done.
“When I heard that we packed enough food to feed 29 children for a year, it made me feel like this was meaningful,” he said.
The students not only packaged the food, but they also prepared and tasted it.
“I was surprised how good the food was, “ said student Abbie Rundle.
Each food bundle consists of rice, the most widely accepted grain around the world, extruded soy nuggets — providing maximum protein at the lowest cost — vitamins, minerals, dehydrated vegetables for flavor and nutrition and a vegetarian chicken flavoring to give growing children critical nutritional elements.
A single bag of food, which feeds six children, costs around $1.44 to produce.
“It felt great to work with my friends to make a difference,” said Meghan Fleming, “Instead of playing games or hanging out for a few hours, we were able to help people.”
“The best gift we can give is our time, our heart and our hands,” Rometty said. “I’m just so proud of our students.”
To make a donation to Feed My Starving Children or schedule a volunteer session, visitfmsc.org.