Mercy Meals

 A few Saturdays ago, the kids and I helped package Mercy Meals for a community project with the girls' 4-H Club.  Our shift lasted two hours and the goal was to package 180,000 meals in the course of a day.  Different groups and organizations had teams to work a two hour shift throughout the day.  The event took place at Northeast Community College in their gym and was coordinated by one of our local radio stations, US92, along with the Mercy Meals Organization.  The meals packaged on this particular day were being sent to somewhere in Africa.  Upon arrival, each person must wash their hands.  After washing your hands, you are not allowed to touch anything.

 Next, each person puts on a hair net and an apron.  Then you sanitize your hands again.  Then each team proceeded to a station to begin packaging.  We were separated from our group because we had so many people show up.  Therefore, the kids and I and the Schlomer family were teamed up with another partial group.

 Everyone had a job on the assembly line.  Justin put a sticker on each filled bag of food and I held the filled bags to be sealed.  The girls switched jobs during the two hours. Sometimes they would box goods, hold bags to be filled, and put rice, vegetables or chicked flavoring into the bags.  After 50 bags were filled and sealed, a box was filled and the whole table would yell which signaled to everyone that another box was completed.

 During our two hour shift, our table filled 8 or 9 boxes with filled bags. 

This is a photo of the Needle & Knives 4-H Club members that worked on this community project!  After our photo we got to taste some of the food that is packaged for people in other countries.  It tasted like chicken flavored rice to me and wasn't bad at all.

Take care,
Michelle