PHOTO BY PAULA MULLER
Volunteers from the Lynn Rotary Club and St. Mary’s High School bag up 10,000 meals on Saturday morning during The second annual Stop Hunger Now event.
By GAYLA CAWLEY
LYNN — The Lynn Rotary Club spent Saturday morning trying to stop hunger.
Volunteers packaged more than 10,000 meals made of rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin and mineral packet. They will be distributed to developing countries, to support school feeding programs, orphanages and crisis relief.
The second annual Stop Hunger Now event at St. Mary’s High School cafeteria is a marvel as participants manage packaging stations and equipment, fill bins with raw ingredients, scoop ingredients into bags, weigh and seal them, box and stack them on pallets and load the finished products onto a truck.
More than 70 volunteers participated in the assembly line packaging system, including 40 student volunteers from St. Mary’s campus ministry. Packaging took less than two hours.
One package, or small meal, will feed a family of six, according to Ray Bastarache, Rotary president and former headmaster of St. Mary’s.
While he doesn’t know where the meals will be distributed, he was told that last year’s meals went to Nepal following the earthquake. In 2010, the meals were delivered to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake and to Japan in 2011, after the tsunami.
“What we do know is that in some developing country around the world, many needy families will have a nutritional meal,” Bastarache said.
To package the meals, Bastarache said the club raised $3,000 to purchase the ingredients. Financial support was donated by Wyoma, Lynn and Shoe City Lions, St. Pius’ Vincent de Paul Society and the Saugus Rotary.
Bastarache said the Rotary Club plans to do the event twice a year. For the fall, he hopes to raise about $4,000, which would allow them to make 13,000 meals.
“It’s going to start a chain reaction of acts of kindness and compassion,” he said.
Steve Upton, Rotary vice-president, said the club does many events for the community, but every once in awhile, likes to do something that helps other parts of the world. He said a goal of the club is to promote a peaceful world.
“It was a fun day,” Upton said. “I’m just pleased frankly with the comradery of the variety of community groups that came together to help people they don’t know in this world. It’s just a great opportunity for service for your fellow man and having a great time in the process.”
Gayla Cawley can be reached at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter @GaylaCawley