Iowa FFA members help package over 200,000 meals to feed people around the world.
Today, students continue sealing boxes and filling soy rice meal bags to send the less fortunate. This is the sixth-year Iowa FFA and Meals from the Heartland partnered together. Mike Frandsen is Hunger Fight manager at Meals from the Heartland based in West Des Moines.
He says the meals students are packaging have four different ingredients.
?There is soy protein from Cargill in Cedar Rapids, there?s rice from Arkansas or Missouri, there is a vitamix and vegetable mix. One bag feeds six people.?
The meals go to 15 different countries.
?Like Haiti, South Africa, Ghana, the Phillipines and the rest of them change on a weekly or monthly basis. We work with school lunch programs or orphanages.?
Meals from the Heartland has been around since 2008.
?This year when we hit October Meals from the Heartland will have packaged over 100 million meals since we started. I love it. I honestly couldn?t see myself doing anything but what we do every day,? Frandsen says.
More than 1,500 FFA members throughout Iowa volunteer to package rice-soy meals.
Students packaged around 80,000 meals Sunday. If the goal of 200,000 meals is met, this project over the course of five years will have contributed 1,400,000 meals to those in need throughout Iowa and around the world.
Meals from the Heartland is a non-profit organization composed of volunteers. Since 2008, Meals from the Heartland has provided more than 40 million meals to the food insecure.
The packaging event at the 89th Iowa FFA Leadership Conference is made possible by Bayer and GROWMARK through the Iowa FFA Foundation.
Mike Frandsen – Hunger Fight staff – Meals from the Heartland
