Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
Serving Gogebic, Iron and Ontonagon Counties
MEMBERS OF the Range Community Bible Church participate in an assembly line preparing bags of food that will be sent to children in need. The volunteers ensure each bag is loaded with an equal distribution of food to prevent a child from being shorted a meal.
By IAN MINIELLY
Hurley - Thanks to the efforts of Gogebic Range residents, 20,000 children in Kenya and 5,000 children in Haiti are being provided meals. This is an increase compared to last year when 20,000 meals were packed and delivered, which is an increase of 25 percent and 5,000 children. Range Community Bible Church, in Hurley, opened its doors Saturday for the event. Four work stations were manned by ten people each in a systematic assembly line effort to make the process as efficient as possible without shorting any of the bags. A light bag means a kid is not getting fed, so it is important each meal is weighed accordingly.
The food is loaded into individual bags by size and weight. Each bag is designed to feed six children a child-sized portion of high quality food. The food consists of four main ingredients: Rice, soy, vegetables and a powder of 21 essential nutrients and vitamins. Chuck Guerber, the leader of Grace Hill Ministries in Ironwood, delivers the food to Haiti himself. He makes sure to eat one of the meals weekly for quality assurance and said it tastes great. He is even considering expanding the meal service here to our local food banks.
Hurley is only the starting point of the journey for these packaged food stuffs. Terry Estes, director of Kids Against Hunger out of St. Louis, drove to Hurley in his pick up truck, towing a trailer with bulk packaging supplies. He will return to St. Louis with those supplies and the meals, to place them in storage, as transportation to Kenya and Haiti is arranged. Once Guerber finalizes the transportation schedules to each location, the food will depart St. Louis on its way to the waiting mouths of hungry children.
The mission of Kids Against Hunger "is to significantly reduce the number of hungry children in the USA and to feed starving children throughout the world. They ship meals to starving children and their families in over 60 countries through partnerships with humanitarian organizations worldwide that take care of the packaging and deliveries," according to the group's website. This is where Guerber and Estes come together, allowing each to focus on what they do best. The end result being children domestically and overseas receive healthy meals they otherwise would have missed altogether.
