Feed My Starving Children, a quiet Villa Maria College tradition with roots in the Haitian earthquake, seeks help from Western New Yorkers for two things: donations to cover the $22,000 cost of packing 100,000 meals, and volunteers to put on hairnets and funnel vitamins, rice, soy flakes and dehydrated vegetables into meal bags headed for Haiti, Honduras, the Philippines and beyond.

Villa Maria College is looking for individuals to contribute, volunteer, or both. Volunteers may sign up for one of four shifts: 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday, March 25, or 10 a.m. to noon, 1 to 3 p.m., 3:30 to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 26. Help is needed for cleanup and set up, too. Anyone interested in volunteering can e-mail Kim Kotz at kkotz@villa.edu for more information. To donate, go to bit.ly/2kGT3TD.

Feed My Starving Children, is a Minnesota-based nonprofit founded in response to hunger in Honduras in 1987. Last year, the organization sent out 272 million of its nutritionist-formulated meals. Community packing events, like the one this month, make up for almost a quarter of meals shipped to orphanages, schools and malnutrition clinics.

“It really provides an opportunity for people to come together and use their hands. If you can’t donate, you can still pack,” said[1]  Kirstie Sherman, FMSC MobilePack development advisor. “It’s an opportunity that a whole family can do together. It’s a mission trip in your own back yard.”

For more information, go to bit.ly/2kGT3TD