Members of FFA chapters from high schools in five counties held a “Living to Serve Day” Saturday morning in the library at Annawan Grade School where they volunteered to “save one starving child at a time,” the mantra of Meals from the Heartland, a non-profit organization based in West Des Moines, Iowa.
FFA members Section 3, which includes high schools in Henry, Bureau, Stark, Mercer and Rock Island counties, divided into groups and manned stations around the room where they filled packages with ingredients which were then placed in boxes to be shipped to hungry children around the world.
Since Meals from the Heartland was founded in 2008, volunteers have filled over 250 million packages which have been sent to 45 countries, including the U.S. Local donors pay for the ingredients at each event. Ingredients included rice, soy protein, vitamins, minerals, and dried carrots, onions, tomatoes, celery, cabbage and bell peppers.
Team member Ryan Garvey said Saturday’s Section 3 event was a “huge success” telling the FFA volunteers at the end of the morning that they “killed it,” reaching the goal of 30,000 meals. He said each FFA member filled enough packages to feed one hungry child for one year.
A box was saved out for each chapter to take back to the food pantry in their community.
The idea for “Living to Serve Day” came from the Section 3 officer team. Section president Paige Sierens, a senior at Annawan High School, said that last December they were looking for a community service project that would involve every chapter in the section during FFA Week the following February.
They were aware that FFA has partnered with Meals from the Heartland in the past but learned more about it when she and another section officer attended a National FFA Leadership Conference in Washington, D.C. in January then contacted the non-profit to volunteer. The event was originally scheduled for FFA Week in mid-February but had to be postponed to Saturday’s March date due to the weather.
Providing funds to purchase the ingredients were River Valley Co-op, Gripp Trucking, Wyffels Hybrids, Gold Star FS, AgView FS, Compeer Financial, Birkey’s Farm Store, and county farm bureaus in each of the five counties in Section 3.
