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| SUMMIT PHOTO BY MARY LODEN
Waldorf College students prepare meal bags that will be shipped to Tanzania. |
Students make an impact on world hunger
Waldorf, RSVP combine to honor Martin Luther King with a day of service
By Mary Loden
Of The Summit
Following the mornings convocation at Waldorf College in which the Rev. Judy Austin addressed the issue of ending racism in America, RSVP of North Central Iowa and Waldorf Campus Ministries participated in an afternoon of service in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Community members and students partnered with Kids Against Hunger, an international food relief campaign, honored King's legacy by making the holiday a “Day On, Not a Day Off.”
Amanda Christenson, Tasha Cummings, Erica Jurrens and Rachel Anderson, all Waldorf students, chatted as they filled plastic bags that contained rice, soy protein powder, dried vegetables and vitamin rich chicken bouillon mix.
The women said that different college clubs and organizations were volunteering as part of their community service projects and some instructors gave students the opportunity to volunteer rather than attend class. But whether or not it was required they all, “definitely would do it anyway.”
Audra Hovick, a senior at Waldorf, was instrumental in bringing Kids Against Hunger to the Waldorf campus.
She said she was a volunteer last summer with Feed My Starving Children out of Chanhassen, Minn. and it was through them she leaned about the Kids Against Hunger mobile units that would bring food and packaging supplies to wherever volunteers could be found. “I saw this as a way we can involve our campus and the rest of the community,” Hovick said.
Over 265 volunteers, including seniors, Waldorf students and Forest City and Christian School students, signed up to package, weigh, seal and box almost 21,000 servings of food that will be shipped to Tanzania.
“We are really excited about the amount of volunteers,” Hovick said and added that additional people were stopping by all the time to ask if they could help.
Each 390-gram bag of food contains rice, soy protein powder, dried vegetables and vitamin rich chicken bouillon, which will feed six people for an entire day.
Hovick said this packaged food was probably the only meal these people received each day but this combination will keep them from malnutrition and starvation.
She said she is still awed “that we can sit here for half an hour to an hour and make an impact on people's lives with so little effort.”
Hovick also got the opportunity to sample one of the meal packs and decided it wasn't half bad. “It's not something I'd want to eat every day but these people are so incredibly grateful for the food.”
This is the first year that Waldorf has participated in this program but with the overwhelming amount of volunteers that signed up. Hovick said she would like to make it an annual event.
She said they chose MLK Day to stage the community event because King's message wasn't just about equality but service to community and making an impact on people's lives.
“This is a way we can make an impact on such an important day,” Hovick said.
Story created Jan 16, 2007 - 16:27:04 CST.
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