Thousands of Meals Packaged in Community Effort

There are roughly 38,000 food-insecure families in New London County. On Saturday, September 19, St. Luke Lutheran Church in Gales Ferry hosted an Outreach, Inc. (EndHungerNE.org) meal packaging event to help combat hunger in the community. This was in conjunction with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA’s) annual “God’s Work, Our Hands” nation-wide event. The goal was to package meals to feed 28,000. In order to host an Outreach event, St. Luke needed to raise funds to purchase ingredients and packing materials and recruit volunteers to assemble the meals. St. Luke chose to pack the Mac & Cheese Dinner (the “standard” for most events) and a new Tomato Basil Meal of protein-fortified pasta with a tomato basil sauce. Four assembly lines were planned, with a fifth line set up for “overflow” volunteers in the morning shift.

With a smooth, early set-up, the volunteers were able to start about 15 minutes before the scheduled 10 a.m. kick-off. By 10 a.m., four lines were going full-blast, with the fifth getting started. Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts were assembling boxes, labeling bags and transporting filled boxes to the storage areas. Additional volunteers were replenishing the macaroni and soy flour (used to protein-fortify the meals). The weather started to warm up, along with the Fellowship hall, but that did not stop anyone from continuing on their “quest”. Production was going exceptionally well. In just two and a half hours, volunteers had nearly reached the goal of 28,000 meals.

With generous donations coming in, and an abundance of (fast-moving) volunteers, Pastor Danny Hammons and event coordinator, Bill Kracke, determined that more meals could be packaged. When every label had been used up, the church made photocopies. When every official box had been filled with the packaged meals, supply boxes were re-purposed to make room for more. The End Hunger volunteers kept packing. It was 2 p.m. when the group finally managed to run out of supplies - a full hour ahead of the initial schedule. Until the very end five fully-manned, human assembly lines kept going, thanks to the efforts of over 125 volunteers.

This was a family-friendly volunteer opportunity, with all ages and abilities pitching in. Just over half of the volunteers were St. Luke members, accompanied by hands from the community with large contingencies coming from Naval Submarine School (20) Cub Scout Pack and Boy Scout Troop 80 (27) and other organizations including Abundant Grace, Fitchville Baptist Church, Groton Bible Chapel, and St. David’s Episcopal Church.

The final tally was 26,040 Mac & Cheese Dinner Meals and 12,760 Tomato Basil Meals for a total of 38,800 total meals to be distributed to Ledyard, Norwich, Groton, and New London Food Banks.

St. Luke thanks everyone who participated and/or donated to make this event successful. Donations to help defray the cost of the initial 28,000 meal goal are still welcome. Please mark “Outreach Meal Packaging” on your donations to make sure they are credited towards the event.

St. Luke is located at 1830 Rt. 12 in Gales Ferry, CT. For information on how to help with future events, contact the church at 860-464-7897 or email Louise@stluke.info.