{"id":37146,"date":"2017-10-25T09:00:07","date_gmt":"2017-10-25T13:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=37146"},"modified":"2017-10-25T09:00:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-25T13:00:10","slug":"st-michaels-rises-against-hunger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/?p=37146","title":{"rendered":"St. Michael’s rises against hunger"},"content":{"rendered":"

By JP Phillips<\/strong>, Staff Writer, The Times<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Some of the many volunteers who gathered at St. Michael’s Sunday to prepare meals, including Asst. Pastor Adrienne Meier, on the right.<\/p><\/div>\n

EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 October 22 was a picture-perfect day; 70 degrees, sunny, low humidity with a clear blue sky.\u00a0 Many spent what could be the last Indian summer Sunday of the year enjoying the outdoors. But instead, members of Unionville\u2019s St. Michael\u2019s Lutheran Church donned hairnets and gloves to help those in need.<\/p>\n

Rise Against Hunger partnered with St. Michaels to help feed children living in food-deprived countries.\u00a0 St. Michael\u2019s provided the donation to purchase the food, the hall, the tables, and the volunteers. Assistant Community Engagement Manager LaToya Gillyard brought the van, sacks of ingredients, boxes, food-handling garb, music, gong, and enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Matthew McQueen getting ready to strike the gong representing another 2,000 lives impacted.<\/p><\/div>\n

The hall was filled with long tables, music, and approximately 100 pairs of busy hands.\u00a0 Every 2,000th<\/sup> meal assembled was recognized by a strike of the gong, an audible symbol for how many lives they are changing by their work.\u00a0 It was always accompanied by enthusiastic whoops and applause from the volunteers.<\/p>\n

It started a few months ago when Assistant Pastor Adrianne Meier assembled a team to coordinate the effort.\u00a0 They distributed small plastic jugs during services for parishioners to collect loose change.<\/p>\n

They collected $6,000.\u00a0 Rise Against Hunger used that money to purchase large sacks of rice, soy, and dried vegetables to be assembled into meals that will be distributed by partner agencies where they are most needed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

High schooler Rachael Stone and Rise Against Hunger representative LaToya Gillyard.<\/p><\/div>\n

Rise Against Hunger works with agencies in forty-seven countries mostly in Africa, Asia, and Europe where devastating food shortages chronically exist (a link to their site is at the end of this article).<\/p>\n

Unionville freshman Rachael Stone explained the assembly-line process to me.\u00a0 The first group of tables puts the rice and beans into 6-portion-sized bags.\u00a0 The next group weighs the bags and adds\/subtracts as necessary to arrive at a predetermined weight, and then adds a nutrient packet.\u00a0 The next group seals the bags.\u00a0 The last group packs the bags into boxes, which are loaded onto the van.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Church volunteers filling the bags.<\/p><\/div>\n

Gillyard has been to Nicaragua to see the food delivered and distributed.\u00a0 The partner agency usually adds local items, prepares it, and serves it to those in need.<\/p>\n

Meier remarked that this event is great because it involves all generations.\u00a0 \u201cWe have a first grader here, and some octogenarians,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Most of the volunteers were young teenagers, pulled from St. Michael\u2019s and the Kennett Square\u2019s Church of the Advent youth groups (they have a shared ministry).<\/p>\n

Cost for the rice, beans, and vegetables for one meal is just twenty-nine cents.\u00a0 Kraft Heinz donated the nutrient packets.<\/p>\n

This year, St. Michael\u2019s assembled double what they accomplished last year. 20,088 meals were assembled on that glorious, potentially last perfect Indian summer day, October 22.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a lot of lives changed.<\/p>\n

Rise Against Hunger website link:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.riseagainsthunger.org\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By JP Phillips, Staff Writer, The Times EAST MARLBOROUGH \u2014 October 22 was a picture-perfect day; 70 degrees, sunny, low humidity with a clear blue sky.\u00a0 Many spent what could be the last Indian summer Sunday of the year enjoying the outdoors. But instead, members of Unionville\u2019s St. Michael\u2019s Lutheran Church donned hairnets and gloves […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7426,90,10537,10536,24],"class_list":["post-37146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-featured","tag-kennett-square","tag-rise-against-hunger","tag-st-michaels-lutheran-church","tag-unionville"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37147,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37146\/revisions\/37147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unionvilletimes.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}