College students meet meal challenge





Take more than 4,000 students and volunteers, add tons of rice and soy, then blend well for one day.

Those ingredients made for a recordbreaking challenge as students from eight North Carolina colleges and universities worked together to pack more than a million meals for hungry people. The food is now en route to El Salvador, Haiti and India.

Stop Hunger Now, a Raleighbased nonprofit organization, held the recent challenge on the campuses of North Carolina State University at Raleigh, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and East Carolina University at Greenville.

“We’re really excited to be here, and hopefully we can make a big difference,” said Mariana Chuck, a Duke University graduate student. “I think that people lose sight of what’s going on in the world.”

The need for food is critical, said the Rev. Ray Buchanan, a United Methodist minister and founder of Stop Hunger Now.

“World hunger is the biggest obscenity of our age,” he said. “Right now, over 850 million—that’s twothirds of the world’s population— goes hungry every single day.”

The students set up funnel stations to fill plastic bags with soy, a chickenflavoring capsule that contains 21 vitamins, dehydrated vegetables and rice. Other students weighed, sealed and packed the bags and loaded the boxes onto trucks.

When mixed with hot water, each bag contains a balanced meal that can feed six people.

Actor Jesse Metcalfe, best known for his recurring role on the ABCTV series “Desperate Housewives,” also dropped by to encourage the students.

Stop Hunger Now began feeding the world’s hungry 10 years ago. In that time, the organization has sent meals to more than 60 countries.

The organization’s previous record for a one-day packaging event involving college students was 300,000 meals.

Buchanan said an increased demand for beef and chicken in China and India, combined with ethanol production in the United States, has increased the demand for corn and driven up prices. The recent sharp rise in fuel prices also has increased the cost of providing meals to developing countries.

The Rev. Steve Hickle, chair of the board of Stop Hunger Now and pastor of Fairmont United Methodist Church in Raleigh, said the University Million Meal Event went a step beyond providing meals to the hungry. It also helped raise awareness.

“I think at least 4,000 volunteers are all getting a message of hunger and taking that to heart,” Hickle said. “So it’s like a whole generation of people that’s been awakened to what they can actually do about world hunger—to help raise the funds and work with the delivery system that is in place and really have an impact.”

Stop Hunger Now holds similar events, though on a smaller scale, at churches. With the help of students, churches and other volunteers, Buchanan believes the organization’s goal is attainable.

“The vision of Stop Hunger Now is simply to achieve a world without hunger,” he said. “We can do that in our lifetime if all of us simply will do what we can.”

This story was written by John Gordon and provided by Worldwide Faith News.


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