Not Your Normal Software Saturday

Today’s blog post is an exception from my normal software lesson because I had, well, an exceptional morning!  Rise Against Hunger hosted a food-packing event at my church, Living Word Lutheran Church, in Grapevine, TX.  Rise Against Hunger’s mission is to end world hunger by the year 2030. Think about it. Imagine a world without starving people in 11 years.  Wouldn’t that be something?  And they have a plan to do that. Now’s that a worthwhile mission.

What’s a food packing event?  One hundred volunteers, ages 5 to 80+ (I think, I didn’t ask) pack 20,000 meals in under 2 hours. Rise Against Hunger provides the food and the equipment.  Our church provided the volunteers to pack twenty thousand meals.  Rise Against Hunger events run like a machine – and you know how I much I love a machine!

So here’s how it played out. The empty truck was parked behind the church when my husband and I arrived.

Inside, five filling stations are lined up, just waiting for the volunteers to arrive.

On the opposite end of the community center, assembled and labeled boxes are waiting.

In the middle of the room, there are five weighing stations. Each station has four volunteers who weigh each assembled bag and then pass the bag to the two people manning the sealers.  Clear boxes hold bags to be weighed, while blue boxes are ready to be sealed.

I manned a scale while my husband was on a sealing machine.

It’s a humbling experience to learn how many grams a few grains of rice weigh.

And that bag of nutritious rice (enriched with vitamins and soy) will feed six people.  Oh my, six people! The sealed bags are picked up by team members, counted and then placed in shipping boxes. 

Once taped shut, they are stacked on pallets, shrink-wrapped and wheeled out to the waiting truck.

Where does it go?  Where ever it’s needed.  It can be anywhere in the world, including the US.

Twenty thousand meals in two hours.  A world without hunger by 2030.  Anything is possible!  You can learn more about Rise Against Hunger here. And more about Living Word Lutheran Church here.

Why did I share this personal experience? I believe the national guideline,  “If you see something, say something.” helps deter violence. And I think the reverse is true, too. If you see something good, share it. Now, that’s an exceptional Saturday!

Join me on Wednesday April 3, at 1:00 CST on Facebook Live.  I’ll be sharing the Top 5 Mistakes Quilters Make (quilters who use their embroidery machines to quilt, of course!).

Don’t forget about the contest to win a copy of the new My Lace Maker software and Angela Wolf’s A Touch of Lace Collection 1.  Go to Wednesday’s blog post to get the details, scroll to the end of the post to read about the contest. Click here to view.

You have until Wednesday, April 3 to win.  See you on Wednesday on Facebook Live!