Over 800 people worked together to provide meals to over nearly 300,000 hungry people in India.

I just left a volunteer event at my church where over 800 people gathered on a rainy day to put together food packets that are being sent to starving families in India.  As a observer of marketing trends and an watcher of philanthropic endeavors, I was extremely impressed by the way that this project was able to serve mankind through its low cost and volunteer interactivity. Yes, it was a bit of an administrative nightmare to put together, but the sponsors, Impact Lives (a division of Converge Worldwide), made the organizing turn-key.  I encourage you to read on.

In a nutshell, my church, Whittier Area Community Church, designated its entire Christmas offering toward this India project.  Basically, we needed to raise $72,000 to purchase the raw ingredients for 285,000 meals to be shipped to India. The $72K benchmark was a high goal for my community church to raise, and due to the economy, we were praying for a miracle.  Well today, WACC Senior Pastor Bill Ankerberg shared the good news with us.  We were able to raise that amount and then some.  The big man upstairs wanted these people to get meals!

This is a wonderful story, however, the point of my blog post today is to share with you the process and how successful it was integrating its purpose and driving home a  message. I hope that this information may inspire you when you are planning your next fund-raising event.

The beauty of this project was that Impact Lives, Inc. understood that the food would not only impact those hungry, but also the process of creating them would be just as impactful for the volunteers.  Brilliant marketing on their behalf.  For it was literally impossible when preparing the bag not to think about how fortunate we are to have food in our cupboards.

The Process

These packages blended together rice, soy protein, 21 essential vitamins and minerals and dehydrated vegetables.  The cost of the meal is a quarter and an entire box (36 packs) will feed an entire family for six months. So you can see that these packages were extremely valuable.

The best way for me to describe this interactive event is through photos (sorry I forgot my video camera.)

Here’s what the finished packages looked like.

Just Add to Boiling Water and Dinner is Ready in 20 minutes - Makes 6 cups

Volunteers were divided in groups of 10. Each group had a table with different tasks.  A person measured the rice, another the soy protein, another the dehydrated vegetables and yet another vitamins.

A Group Effort

After the mixture was in the bag, a person had to weigh each to make sure it was at the proper weight.

If they weighed too much, you'd take some out.

After that, it was time to seal them up – it was fun using the electric sealer as you can tell – Aleta was great at it.

After that, once you had 36 together – it was time to stuff them in a box which was then swiftly carted away.  In addition to the volunteer mixers, others kept us in stock of rice, etc.  Volunteers worked two hours shifts and it was open to everyone, no matter your age. Therefore, families could participate. Also, everyone had to wear those darling hair nets.

The final stop was transporting the cartons to the trailer which was being hauled to the Port of Los Angeles tomorrow for boarding onto a cargo ship.  The shipping container will be on its way to India this week.

Often, when you donate to a charitable cause you never see where your money goes. Well, with this project, you witnessed your work and where it was going.  It was a first class operation from start to finish.  And it was a lot of fun meeting new people.  Also, members of the community joined in as well in addition to those who attend the church.

The food that was prepared is being shipped to India’s eastern port of Vishakhapatnam, (a.k.a. Visag.)  The first cluster of villages that will receive the food is 100 miles north of this spot, the second distribution point will be a refugee camp in the northern state of Assam.

I originally had signed up for one two hour shift, but was enjoying it so much I stayed for another.  At the end of the day, I can say I felt grateful to help those who are starving.  This event has changed my life and hopefully others too.  I pray that I never complain about another meal again.  I must be grateful for whatever I have on my plate.

In this vein, it would be great to hear about a fund-raiser you have been involved with that included many volunteers. I’d love to hear about it….so please comment.

Best,

Cindy