Food For The Poor donor and Join The Pack team captain Julie Steere shares her experience of our recent meal packing event. Nearly 300 starving children in Haiti will receive food every day for a year from Food For The Poor, thanks to volunteers who packed 101,088 lifesaving meals during the charity’s first Join The Pack event.
The Hungry Eyes team was incredibly blessed to be able to participate in Food For The Poor’s Join The Pack event. As a “karate mom” of two teenagers on the Tri Star Karate Champions for Christ demo team, we have been searching for a service project that shares the love of Christ, while serving those in need.
When 8th degree Grand Master Jerry Wiles heard about Join The Pack ‘s manna packing event, the “Master Pastor” (as we affectionately call him) summoned his Tang Soo Do team of karate kids and their families to join together to serve and make a Kingdom difference.
The Hungry Eyes team came together, and others with a huge heart for Haiti also joined in, including our missionary friends, Cynthia & Michael Cohen and friends of Haiti’s Hope, Inc., an orphanage with 24 beautiful girls in Port-au-Prince. In addition, dear friends, Ralph, Armand & Sebastien Bourjolly, celebrating their own Haitian heritage, also came to support Food For The Poor’s worthy cause.
What came together became so much more … not just a way to serve out of obligation, but it was super fun for all! Dancing to the music while sporting hair nets, time flew by as we tried to pack as many manna pack meals as possible in the short amount of time we had! What to some, who may have signed up as a requirement to fulfill school mandated community service, became a truly memorable experience for those of all ages. Children who participated, even as young as 6 years old, also learned about those less fortunate.
At the event, we gained a whole new level of understanding and compassion for the children who rarely get to have one meal a day. We met the little ones, through videos, those sweet souls who are in need of our help. We saw the true stories, the starving little souls, their “hungry eyes” peering out at us in the videos and later, their beaming smiles and healthy bodies, after receiving life-saving nourishing manna meals provided by Food For The Poor. We got to know them personally and have the privilege to meet their needs.
At one moment, one teenage volunteer inquired, “What time is it?!” Their friend quickly smiled and replied, “It’s time to feed the children!!!”
Time at Join the Pack went by quickly and before we knew it we were celebrating the huge harvest that was reaped, with our session alone packing approximately 135 boxes, 29,160 meals, to feed 79 children for a year! The grand finale of the entire event was a tremendous success, with more than 100,000 meals packed and nearly 300 kids fed!
On the way home in the car, there was a spiritual awakening rekindled in my family as my kids asked, “When can we serve again?!” Other Hungry Eyes team members shared the same enthusiasm and have asked about the next event. What an amazing blessing to share with our kids, our families and our community…
Food For The Poor’s Join The Pack event was lively, festive and fun, and we left us all feeling very fulfilled. We came to feed the hungry, but we were the ones who left feeling full!
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst. ~John 6:35
