Oak Park, River Forest Volunteers to Pack Meals for Starving Children

Submitted by the Oak Park Community MobilePack.

Oak Park, IL - On April 16, 500 volunteers from the Oak Park and River Forest community will gather in Concordia University’s South Gym to pack 100,000 meals to feed children in danger of dying from starvation and malnutrition.

This “Mobile Pack” is being coordinated through Feed My Starving Children, a non-profit targeting the neediest of children in 70 countries throughout the world.

In 2014, FMSC provided 224 million meals to children, including 63 million meals packed at over 230 Mobile Packs in 37 states, like the one to be held at Concordia.

The approach is simple: children and adults hand-pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children, and FMSC ships these meals to their distribution partners. 92 percent of the funds raised by FMSC are spent directly on feeding starving children and 99.6 percent of the food reaches its intended destination.

“We are overwhelmed at the community’s response to our call for volunteers and donors,” said Julie Denise, one of the event’s organizers. “We are currently looking for volunteers who are ‘All In’ - willing to donate both their time and $50 towards the food they will pack. Some of our partners are incorporating ‘All In’ into their ministries. For example, the confirmation class at St. Giles Catholic Church in Oak Park is using ‘All In’ as their service project and First Presbyterian Church of River Forest will incorporate ‘All In’ as part of an all church day of service.”

In addition to Concordia, St. Giles and First Presbyterian, College Life, Grace Lutheran Church, Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church of Oak Park, First Baptist Church of Oak Park, First United Methodist Church of Oak Park, Young Life, and Il Vicolo Trattoria have all committed to support the event, including fundraising to pay for the food to be packed and volunteers to pack it.

Sonja Sorensen, a senior at Concordia, is working with a group of community volunteers to organize and promote the event. “Working on the Feed My Starving Children Mobile Pack has been a great opportunity to put into practice what I’ve learned at Concordia about service leadership,” said Sorensen.

Volunteers and donors for the event are still needed. More information on donating and volunteering is available on the event website at fundraising.fmsc.org/OakParkCommunity.