By Maurice Emery
Editor

The new parking lot was full the parking lot across from Mosby Avenue was almost full.  There was a white truck backed up to the front right side door.  You could tell from the outside of the Littleton United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall that their first Stop Hunger Now event drew more volunteers than had been anticipated. 

When you walked into the front door it was quiet with the sign up table just outside the doors of the hall.  You had to sign up and then place a hair net on your head (whether you had hair or not).

When you walked through the doors and entered the hall it was a whole new world.  It was production efficiency at its best.  One hundred and twenty three volunteers from ages four to 83 were at several tables, divided by function, fillers, weight checkers, sealers, checkers, counters and boxers. 

The excitement and energy was infectious. Their goal was to fill 2,500 bags of food for the Stop Hunger Now project.   This is equal to 15,000 meals for those who may not have anything to eat. 

What starts at the Littleton United Methodist Church will end up in various countries throughout the world.  Some will be shipped within this hemisphere and others thousands of miles away.  Pastor Rob Licht happily noted that they packaged enough food in roughly ninety minutes to feed the town of Littleton three meals a day for a week.

Saturdays packaging event was part of Operation Sharehouse a program for Stop Hunger Now.  Operation Sharehouse is set up to provide the high protein, dehydrated meals sent around the globe. 

Rick Kearney, Operation Sharehouse director for the Goldsboro facility, said the organization’s aims are simple: To get nutritionally sound meals into the hands of people who need them. The group does that by joining stateside volunteers with already established groups operating around the world.

Littleton UMC Mission Committee Chair Richard Sherman, told the Observer in an earlier interview that the church discovered Stop Hunger Now by accident, when some of its members visited a similar packaging effort in Wilson.

“We thought this was such a great project we wanted to bring it here, for the greater Littleton community to take part,” Sherman stated.

According to Sherman the effort last Saturday went off better than expected.  They were able to collect enough money for 15,000 meals surpassing their original goal of 10,000.  They had twice as many volunteers show up and they were completed in half the time. They started packaging at 10:40 a.m. and were done at 11:45 a.m.

The event will mean the Goldsboro warehouse that Kearney started last October will add 15,000 more meals to the over 400,000 they have already shipped. This is the first step of a process of feeding the needy.

Stop Hunger Now will ship the meals through various partner organizations including United Methodist Committee on Relief, Rotary International and many other partners.  According to Kearney the groups they use know what they are doing and make sure the food gets to the areas where needed. 

Once the food arrives in one of the more than 36 countries they presently ship to, local groups in the receiving country take over. Many of these are faith based, but more importantly they know how to get the meals through customs in a timely fashion and into the hands of those that need it. When the Observer asked Kearney about the stories we hear about food rotting on the docks and being stolen by black marketers and not getting to the needy, he said that is why they use reputable agencies to make sure the food gets to its destination within 4-6 seeks of being shipped.   

It cost just 20 cents a meal and each package contains six meals. Volunteer’s combine fortified rice-soy mixture, which also includes dehydrated vegetables, chicken flavoring, salt and 21 essential vitamins in one package.  

When the recipient receives the package they place it in boiling hot water, which helps kill any germs, and then serve it.  Each package contains enough food and nutrition for one day. 

At the end of the work they had small samples of the meal ready to serve the volunteers.  Most people said it was very edible.   This reporter likened it to the food he had in the military, you could eat it, it doesn’t offend you, but you won’t find it on a restaurant menu. 

When it was all over Sherman Merchant asked the volunteers if they would like to do it again in six months, there was a loud yes. That brought a big smile to Kearney’s face, he had mentioned earlier that they hoped to do it once a year; six months must have sounded great.   Next time they hoped to get enough money for more meals than they did this time. 

You can visit Littleton UMC web site at www.littleton-umc.org and Stop Hunger Now at www.stophungernow.org.