Villa Maria College’s contribution to the international “Feed My Starving Children” meal project, in its seventh year this April, inspires students, staff and families to take creative approaches to teamwork and raising money-- selling painting lessons, homemade Sicilian rice balls and even forgoing birthday presents.

The campus tradition involves months of preparation and fundraising for the $26,000 needed to buy food. This year’s expected 500 volunteers will gather and pack the high-nutrition ingredients into bags making 108,000 meals to be shipped off to countries in need, like Haiti and the Philippines.

Packing events like this, known as “MobilePacks,” are held with help from the national organizer, the Minnesota-based nonprofit Feed My Starving Children. Local efforts, like Villa’s, supply almost a quarter of the FMSC food sent to orphanages, schools and clinics. Founded in response to hunger in Honduras in 1987, the organization shipped 284 million of its nutritionist-formulated meals last year.

Volunteers are needed to make donations and cover four shifts:

·       Saturday, April 14, 2018, 6 p.m. – 8 p.m.

·       Sunday, April 15, 2018, 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.

·       Sunday, April 15, 20181 p.m. – 3 p.m.

·       Sunday, April 15, 2018 3:30 p.m. – 5:30 p.m.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4hQPtN1zxY&feature=youtu.beAnyone interested in volunteering, donating or getting more information can email or call the organizer, Dr.Kim Kotz at kkotz@villa.edu or 716-961-1837.