WEST TENNESSEE: Diocese's effort to feed Haitian children enlists many faiths
Episcopal News Service. November 9, 2009 [110909-05]
The Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee joined with other Tennesseans Nov. 7 to pack more that 140,000 meals for hungry children at St. Vincent's Center for Handicapped Children in Port-au-Prince and St. Paul's School in Montrouis, Haiti.
The hospital and the school are run by the Episcopal Church in Haiti, which is part of the U.S.-based Episcopal Church.
The meal-packing effort was a project of the ecumenical West Tennessee Haiti Partnership, which teamed up with Raleigh, North Carolina-based Stop Hunger Now (SHN).
On Nov. 7, according to a diocesan news release, close to 775 volunteers of many different faiths gathered in two shifts at Church of the Holy Communion Episcopal in Memphis to pack the specially formulated meals of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a flavoring cube containing 21 essential vitamins and minerals. The morning shift welcomed volunteers from a dozen Episcopal Church parishes as well as Presbyterian, Methodist, Catholic, Church of God in Christ, Muslim and Baptist groups, eight local private and public schools, local attorneys and other professionals, Girl Scout troops and other local organizations, according to the release.
Volunteers measured rice, sealed the meal bags and loaded boxes in delivery trucks. Young children helped take the finished meal packets from the filling stations to the boxing stations, and volunteers in wheelchairs added scoops of dehydrated vegetables to the meals. One person brought a group of friends to the event in lieu of having a birthday party.
The children at St. Vincent's, many of them orphans, consume only about 700 calories per day, according to the news release and thus lack the vitamins and other nutrients needed for health and growth. Those who do not live at the school may get nothing to eat at home, even for an entire weekend. Once delivered, final recipients may add local ingredients, such as beans or other vegetables and seasonings. The meals are easy to transport, have a five-year shelf life and cost 25 cents each.
Donations toward the cost of the meals were collected for the West Tennessee event, and FedEx provided a portion of the shipping cost, the release said.
Children of the diocese's Emmanuel Episcopal Center (EEC) raised several hundred dollars to support the meal effort. EEC works with Memphians in the poorest zip code in the country, especially the residents of the Cleaborn/Foote housing project. These children, most of whom are frequent recipients of donated meals themselves, were inspired to reach out to other impoverished children in God's name, the release said.
"Feeding the hungry is an end in itself," West Tennessee Bishop Don E. Johnson said in the release. "It is also a means of witnessing to our faith in the God who feeds us all."