Recap of our Rise Against Hunger service project
Our club was invited to participate in the Rise Against Hunger event organized by president of the Sunrise South Bay Rotary Club, David Henseler. Here is a link to the photo album from the event.
Club President Stephanie B., Community Service co-chair Stephanie L., and resident club baker, Nathan, drove down yesterday to the Torrance YMCA to join about a dozen clubs from Rotary District 5280 to assemble meal pouches with Rise Against Hunger. We were initially working with Denise, a new Rotaract member from CSU, Dominguez Hills, which is a brand new club!
From the reps from Rise Against Hunger, we learned that the food we are packing will be shipped all over the world to where it's needed most. We are including four things in each pouch:
- A vitamin/nutrition supplement. If you haven't eaten in a week, food can be hard on your stomach, so the supplement/vitamins can help ease that.
- Dehydrated vegetables
- Dehydrated textured soy protein granules
- White rice
After the pouches were filled, runners would take the pouches to a weighing station, to verify that the weight was between 379 - 384 grams. If it was too heavy or too light, the people weighing would adjust using rice. Once weight was verified, they would give it to the people across the table who would seal the bags.
After sealing, the pouches would be moved to a labeling station, where they would be labeled as being packaged by our district 5280, then packed into boxes, then loaded on a pallet.
Each pouch contains six meals. Each box contains 36 pouches (216 meals). Each pallet holds 55 boxes/1,980 pouches/11,880 meals! When we left, there were three pallets completed, so almost 36,000 meals! There was a crew of people who stayed on to finish up the project and they ended up with over 40,000 meals!
We were exhausted by the end of the project, but also, had a great time meeting other Rotarians from the district and knowing that our labor helped feed people who are starving across the world!
