Crystal Brown

cbrown@weatherforddemocrat.com

Following a food-packaging event in August hosted by the Lewisville satellite of Kids Against Hunger, community pastors began discussing forming a local chapter.

Since then, the Parker County Ministerial Alliance has filed for its tax exempt status for Kids Against Hunger Parker County and held its first packaging event Saturday at Couts United Methodist Church.

“Once we experienced doing a packaging event, myself and a couple of other pastors start talking about becoming a satellite,” said volunteer chairperson for the Parker County group Tim Jarrell. “We mentioned it to the ministerial alliance and they wanted to get behind it so that all the churches can use this and civic groups can participate.”

More than 100 volunteers participated in Saturday’s event, each taking two-hour shifts. With about 90 minutes left to go in the day, they had packaged about 35,000 meals.

“A normal start up they want you to do is 28 to 30 [thousand], but we wanted to go beyond that,” Jarrell said. “It’s a busy time of year and we had high aspirations. We hope to package 40,000.”

He added, if a volunteer works two hours and donated $85, they will have personally fed a child for an entire year.

“That’s the incredible thing about this program, that with just a small amount of your labor and money you can feed a child for a year,” he said.

But every little bit helps, he added.

“If you can give money and can’t work, we’re glad to have that,” Jarrell said. “If you can’t give money but can work, we’re glad to have that. If you can do both, all the better.”

The next packaging event is contingent on when they raise enough money to purchase the raw materials. Jarrell said their goal is to do at least one a month.

A local bank is working with the Ministerial Alliance to purchase a trailer to house the packaging materials, so any church or civic group interested in hosting an event can have easy access to the necessary equipment.

Trained volunteers are also required to be present at the packaging events.

“We did training last night for 24 people and you need at least two of those people on sight,” Jarrell said. “There are little things like you have to be wearing a hair net or hat and hand washing or gloves. And the procedure on how to load up the pallets is prescribed.”

Mike Lloyd, executive director for the national association for Kids Against Hunger, was present at the start up. He said a member of the national organization is present for the first event of each new satellite to answer questions and establish a relationship with the community.

There are currently 74 satellite chapters of Kids Against Hunger across the country, a figure that jumped from only 38 chapters in just the past 18 months. Kids Against Hunger hopes to eventually reach 500 chapters. The organization was founded 12 years ago.

“It’s very grassroots and word of mouth, but we are growing as fast as we possibly can,” Lloyd said. “Our goal is to feed all the starving children in the world. That is a daunting, daunting task.”

He also praised the efforts of the Parker County Ministerial Alliance for forming this so the entire community can have access to participate. While churches have formed about half of the nations chapters, Lloyd said this is the first ministerial association to create a chapter.

“That is so unique and something to applaud,” Lloyd said. “I applaud their desire to work together. They will accomplish great things.”

Food packaged in Saturday’s event will ship off to Mexico Dec. 27.

“We’re excited to have this for Parker County,” Jarrell said. “It’s incredible for such a small amount of your money and time you can do something as significant as save the life of a child.”

Kids Against Hunger is a humanitarian food-aid organization that relies on volunteer help to package raw materials that is then sent to starving children across the world. For more information, visit www.kidsagainsthunger.org.