The Rotary Club of Tryon has begun preparing for an event it will hold on June 2 in cooperation with “Stop Hunger Now” (www.stophungernow.org), which sends meals to Haiti Outreach Ministries to help feed Haitian children.
Stop Hunger Now provides meals that are complete and nutritious, including rice, vegetables, protein and vitamins. The meals are dehydrated and made ready to eat by adding water heated to at least 150 degrees.
Currently, Rotary is raising money to purchase the food and pay for the shipping of the meals. The cost of each meal, including shipping to a partner organization, is $.25, or four meals for $1.
Last year, Rotary raised $6,200 from the community for this program; this year’s goal is $10,000, which would supply 40,000 meals.
“If many of our community organizations would donate $100 to $1,000, we could easily meet this goal,” Rotary officials said.
Rotary purchases the meals with the money raised and organizes volunteers to prepare the meals for shipment to their final destination.
On June 2, at the open air gymnasium at Harmon Field, Rotarians and other volunteers will put the ingredients into packages, seal the packages, put the packages in a box, load the boxes on pallets, wrap the pallets for shipping and load them on a truck to be combined with other meals to make a full container to be shipped to Haiti. Rotary plans to have two shifts of people packing food, with each shift working two hours.
At a secure warehouse in Haiti obtained by a sister Rotary Club, Haiti Outreach Ministries will remove the packed meals and prepare meals for the children at lunch each day as they attend school. Haiti Outreach Ministries Executive Director Pastor Leon, who has visited Tryon Rotary, oversees the operation. He said he takes pride in seeing that 98 percent of their resources go to the children.
If you are interested in donating to this program, you can send your contribution to Rotary Club of Tryon Foundation, P.O. Box 923, Tryon, N.C. 28782.
If you are interested in volunteering on June 2, contact Charles McKeller at 828-859-9347 or 828-817-9831, or any Tryon Rotary member.
– article submitted