Last Saturday morning Cara and Erica had a short 4-H meeting and then the club went to package Mercy Meals for their community service project. They packaged the meals for one hour.
Upon arrival at the Mercy Meal warehouse everyone must put on aprons, hair nets and then wash their hands. Here the group is listening to instructions about packaging the food.
Assembly lines are then set up to package the meals. Everyone has a job in the assembly line.
Allison is sealing a package shut for the shipment. The packages that the kids put together would either be sent to Kenya or Haiti.
Casey is waiting for her turn to put a label on a finished package of food.
Cara and Charli were packaging the filled bags in boxes. Each box contains 50 bags of food. Each bag contains: rice, soy, dried vegetables, chicken base. Each bag feeds 3 people and costs about $0.70 to make.
Erica worked behind the scene assembling boxes and putting labels on the boxes.
The following is from a letter handed out to the volunteers:
Mercy Meals of Nebraska is a non-profit organization that allows volunteers to package nourishing food that will be delivered to children in need throughout the world. Orphanages, refugee camps, feeding centers, disaster relief centers and local food pantries have been recent recipients of the food.
Through this program, we hope to instill in our children a sense of self-empowerment, civic duty, world awareness, kindness toward their fellow man and appreciation for the blessings in their daily lives. We want then to know that they can make a difference in other people's lives by being informed, by making good choices in their lives, by giving their time and by donating their talents.
This was a great service project for these kids to complete, especially at this time of the year. The project is easy and fun to complete. My kids have done Mercy Meals before and each time they have a good time while helping less fortunate people.
Take care,
Michelle
