Sewa International ~ Feed My Starving Children: March 2023

Feed My Starving Children (FMSC - www.fmsc.org) has always been a place of faith that has worked with people of all backgrounds. The non-profit organization provides the community with a chance to serve their community, both locally and globally, to provide nutritional meals, for starving and malnourished people in over 70 countries around the world. The nonprofit is run solely based on volunteers, so as volunteers from Sewa International’s 2023 LEAD program (Chicago Chapter), we all gathered at Feed My Starving Children Aurora, IL location, ready to help.

I’ve been a part of Sewa International for 3 years now, starting in my freshman year of high school. FMSC has always been one of my favorite events, because of the direct impact we make on the people we package the meals for. Upon walking inside the building, we were told to wear hairnets, put all our jewelry in small bags, and sit down. Afterward, we were given a few rules: never put your hands inside the bag, and make sure to change your gloves if you touched anything besides the packing materials. These simple rules made sure that we wouldn't spread any of our germs to the already vulnerable people the bags were being sent to.

Following the setup, we washed out hands and headed back to the facility. There are 3 main jobs here. One group, with the larger margin, is the packing stations. Here, teams, a minimum of 4, hand package bags filled with rice, soy, dried vegetables, and a nutritionally complete blend of vitamins and minerals. After the bags are filled, they are weighed and sealed then packaged into a box, and later shipped off to the warehouse. The second group is said warehouse workers. They help move the filled boxes full of sealed bags into the warehouse, organize them, and refilling the fast-depleting food portions for the bagging stations. The final group, is the volunteers that label the bags, so they can be organized and filled with ease.

I, myself, was a part of the packing stations. My group and I split up the tasks, with 2 on the ingredients, 1 on the bag assembly, and myself on weighing, while an adult was on sealing and packaging. FMSC utilizes the competitive spirit, roughly 30 minutes before the session would end a facility volunteer announced that there would be a competition.

“First team to package 10 boxes in under 10 minutes wins !!”

The session for the next 10 minutes was filled with sounds of metal clinking together, bags being sealed, and yells for more ingredients and new boxes. Yet, the atmosphere was upbeat, and fun. Everyone was having a great time, the cheerful music just added to the overall experience.
After the time was called, we cleaned up our packing stations and washed our hands gathering again in the original seating area. Soon after, we prayed for the meals that were packaged, wishing that the meals reach safely and help whoever they end up feeding. As a group, we packaged 148 boxes. That is 31,968 meals, and 88 kids would be fed for a year, the cost reaching $9,270.72.
Volunteering at FMSC gave not just us, as teens, an opportunity to impact hundreds around the world, but also our parents and siblings. This special experience was able to encourage others to give back to their community, by spending only 2 hours of their day.

All in all, both Sewa and FMSC are organizations that promote teamwork in order to give back to the community. As a teenager who wishes to see the world as one big family, I encourage many people to donate and give back, so everyone in my big family never has to choose between a meal or clothes on their back ever again.

Sewa International (www.sewausa.org) is a Hindu faith-based, humanitarian, nonprofit service organization registered under Internal Revenue Code 501 (c) (3). Founded in 2003, Sewa International is part of a larger movement that started in India in 1989 and is active in twenty countries. Sewa serves humanity irrespective of race, color, religion, gender, or nationality.

We specialize in disaster relief and rehabilitation. Our development programs focus on family services; child, tribal, and refugee welfare; women empowerment; health; and education.

In addition to our work in the US, we have undertaken development projects in Colombia, Guyana, India, Kenya, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.

Written by Harshasree Gangasani, a member of Sewa International’s Chicago 2023 LEAD program, on behalf of Sewa International.