Fort Mill Scouts, church team up to stop hunger

FORT MILL --?

A couple of really good popcorn-selling years, a small surplus of funds, a group of dedicated Boy Scouts and the local church who loves them turned into a recipe for success last week at Grace Presbyterian Church in Fort Mill.

Cub Scout Pack 250, Boy Scout Troop 250 and Venturing Crew 250 teamed up Oct. 8 with the Global Missions Team and congregation of Grace Presbyterian and the humanitarian organization Stop Hunger Now to prepare 12,000 meals for people in need.

?It?s a great educational opportunity and a mission opportunity to do something with a global impact locally. We thought it would be a unique opportunity for the congregation and the Scout units to interact a little bit,? said mission team member and Scout liaison Ray Scott.

Grace Presbyterian is home to a congregation of about 400. The church charters several Scouting groups comprised of roughly 225 students and more than 75 adults.

Scouts and congregation members lined up assembly-line style and measured, mixed, weighed and sealed bags of food. The smallest Scouts counted finished product and pushed the bags into shipping boxes. Older Scouts refilled bins from 100-pound bags of rice and loaded finished cases into the truck that would take them to Stop Hunger Now?s south Charlotte warehouse, where they will be shipped worldwide as needed for crisis relief and school feeding programs.

By providing a hot meal to children at school, school feeding programs give impoverished parents an additional incentive to send their children to school. Stop Hunger Now hopes that supporting education through feeding programs will help break the cycle of poverty for these families.

Troop treasurer and committee member Paul Smith is credited with the original idea for the food packing project at Grace Presbyterian.

?I?ve done it before in other places. We enjoyed it. It?s something all ages can do, and it?s a lot of fun. You can have fun and help people at the same time,? he said.

Fort Mill resident Mark Barnes recently began working for Stop Hunger Now and helped to coordinate the packing event Monday evening, bringing family members along to volunteer as well. Barnes estimates that one billion of the planet?s seven billion residents suffer from hunger, and 25,000 die daily due to hunger-related causes.

?We?re going to do some significant damage today in the war against poverty and the war against hunger,? he said.

Stop Hunger Now is an international relief organization founded in 1998 in Raleigh, N.C., with offices and a warehouse in south Charlotte. The organization coordinates volunteer groups to raise funds ? approximately 25 cents per meal ? and assemble shelf-stable, easily transportable food packages for use in school feeding programs and crisis relief in the United States and internationally.

Each food package serves six and consists of a vitamin and mineral-fortified flavoring mix along with dehydrated rice, soy and vegetables. More than 250,000 volunteers have assembled over 30 million meals since Stop Hunger Now?s meal packaging program began in 2005.

Barnes says Stop Hunger Now is averaging three to four food packing events weekly, resulting in nearly 10 container loads of food being shipped annually from the organization?s south Charlotte warehouse.

For information on Stop Hunger Now, go to stophungernow.org.

Source: http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2012/10/15/2265510/fort-mill-scouts-church-team-up.html

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