Once again we are at the time of year when we hear about the extravagances of living in the material world. People fighting over TVs, shoppers descending on stores in the middle of the night to fight over some gee-gaw that will eventually sit in a corner of the house or more likely will be thrown out in a couple of years.

We hear these stories hyped hour after hour on our media and we begin to wonder where are the people who care in this country? Where are those who give back? Where is the soul of this country that still as a nation has so much more that others?

Well we found such people and such a group the other day and it makes me feel good to have a chance to tell folks about it. Carol and I work with a small local group called Dream Catchers in West Liberty. One of the things we hope we can inspire the Dreamers with is that they are part of a larger world and they are expected to give back to the world. One of our mentors set us up with a great opportunity to do so the other night.

We were set up to help package meals for an organization known as “Kids Against Hunger.” Kids Against Hunger (I will use the initials KAH here on out) began about a dozen years ago by an engineer named Richard Proudfit in New Hope Minnesota. Mr. Proudfit worked for years to come up with a way to ship highly nutritious food in small containers to kids of the world and their families. He developed a small plastic package that contained dehydrated vegetables, soy protein, rice and 27 vitamins that could survive shipment around the world. The contents of that little package contained 6 meals at a total cost of $1.50 or 25 cents a meal.

Proudfit encountered many hurdles while developing his cheap, high nutrition meals and the distribution systems. The last hurdle was the need for constant expansion of the workforce to put the meals together. This is where we come in.

The packing system is a simple set up that involves a few pieces, a small amount of training and of course the meal supplies. So last Monday the Dream Catchers organization, mentors and students, met at a local church hall to be trained and to package KAH meals.

West Liberty, Iowa is one of the most interesting towns in Iowa. One of the hallmarks of West Liberty is that people are involved. They are involved in many activities that help make life better for the community. As Iowa’s only minority majority city, people of West Liberty learned long ago that we need to work together to survive or surely we will all sink. In that spirit some local folks became what is known as a wing unit of KAH. As a wing unit they have equipment and host packing groups as often as they can. So at 7PM we traipsed out to the First Church United community room and by 7:15 we were packing meals. All we needed was 12 people and an hour of time and some minor skills.

Let me interject here that KAH is not a religious group. Their mission is to feed starving children around the world. Period. Churches in small towns are often one of few place to gather. And while many may think that you should be religious to join in one of these groups, believe me all you need is a desire to help people. While I seldom discuss it, I am as far from religious as they come.

So we packed and it was fun. We had kids from age 9 to 15 and a smattering of adults. In one hour we packed 10 full cases of meals. So in total that was 2,160 meals (6 meals per packet X 36 packets per case X 10 cases). And we felt like we had really accomplished something, because we had accomplished something big.

Here comes the pitch. As soon as I heard the story of KAH that night my first thought was “I have to tell people about this group.” I have a small bullhorn here and I am taking that privilege to sound off. If you have a group looking to make a difference I daresay you would be hard pressed to find a more rewarding vehicle.

If you are in the eastern Iowa area, you can give one of our local KAH leaders a call. Syd Harned can be reached at 319-627-2643 or Bill Koellner at 319-627-4138. If you live elsewhere in Iowa go here to contact the state leaders:
http://www.kidsagainsthungeria.com/contact-us
And if you live elsewhere in the country, I am sure the folks in New Hope would love to hear from you Go here to contact them:
http://www.kidsagainsthunger.org/contact_us.shtml

Let me add that sadly some of the food packages are distributed in the United States. So if you are focused on helping in the United States, KAH works here also.

By the way the website for KAH in Iowa is here: http://www.kidsagainsthungeria.com/