Highlights of the event:

• Volunteers came from eleven states, including: California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
• Besides the United States, six other countries were represented by volunteers. Those included: China, Egypt, Finland, Germany, Russia and Switzerland.
• More than 70 businesses, 80 churches and two-dozen area schools supported the event by contributing money, donated goods, services or other support, including sponsoring teams of volunteers to help package.
• On opening night of the event, 800 students from 21 area high schools packaged 327,888 meals during the “Student Challenge”, sponsored by Pioneer Hi-Bred.
• Volunteers also donated thousands of pounds of food for the Des Moines Area Religious Council (DMARC) food pantry.

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this event a success!

Food Distributions
Lifeline’s supply of food to distribute to the people in the tent cities (Relief Distribution) has now dwindled to the “Kids Food” that we receive from Kids Against Hunger, Impact Lives, Outreach International and Meals From The Heartland.  The other foods that were being shipped in have stopped coming (those from large organizations like World Food Program, etc.).

I am seeing better health in the kids that daily receive the hot meals through Lifeline, but there is no shortage of people coming to clinic who are in desperate need.  We continue to see many malnourished elderly, women, children and infants.

Thank you for your continued support of Meals from the Heartland! Without your time, donations and prayers, we wouldn’t be making such a difference!

Blessings,
The Meals from the Heartland Team

The annual Meals from the Heartland event normally requires 9 months to a year to plan; we’re planning Help for Haiti in just 6 weeks. In that respect, we thank you for your patience while we fundraise, order food items, plan packaging shifts and coordinate volunteers. We understand that you feel the call to help, and we are doing all we can to create that opportunity.

We will soon be opening up registration for packaging volunteers, but in the meantime want to answer some of the most pressing questions about the event.

Online Registration:

Online registration will open Monday, February 8 for food packaging volunteers. If you would consider volunteering for a host or other volunteer positions (not packaging), online registration is now open (here).

Event:

The Help for Haiti packaging event will take place February 22-23 and 25-27. During that week we will package as many meals as possible.

Volunteering:

We will need volunteers to package meals, as well as host volunteers who are responsible for registering packagers, filling ingredients, etc. For more information about these positions, please click here.

Location:

Packaging will take place at the Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines. We are also exploring a second site for additional packaging, but will have more details later.

Training:

There will be two training sessions at Lutheran Church of Hope for all Host Positions:
In the Chapel on February 20th and 21st from 3:30 pm to 4:30 pm.

Shifts:

We are unsure at this point how many shifts will be available since we’re still taking donations and ordering supplies. However, we do know that shifts will be 1 hour so that we can provide the opportunity to package for as many people as possible.

NOTE: Unfortunately, we will not be to “hold” packaging slots or reserve tables for groups. If there is not enough space to accommodate your entire group, please remember that there will still be a need for help for the Meals from the Heartland annual packaging event, September 2-5 this year!

Mobile Packaging:

Meals from the Heartland now offers the opportunity to host on-site mobile packaging on a year-round basis. If you’re a church, school, business or another organization that has raised money and has the space to package, we’d be happy to work with you! To learn more about how to bring the mobile packaging unit to your location, please contact us at support@mealsfromtheheartland.org.

Donations/Fundraising:

If you are interested in donating to Meals from the Heartland, below are some ways you can help:

• Donate here online. Remember, one meal costs just 15 cents, so $50 feeds 333 hungry children
• Purchase your groceries at any Fareway store in Iowa and donate $1, $5 or $10 to go to Meals from the Heartland to package meals.
• Attend “Hearts for Haiti” this Friday, February 5, where all proceeds go toward packaging meals for Haiti. You can get more details here.
• If you have more fundraising ideas, please contact scott@mealsfromtheheartland.org.

We will continue to update this blog with information concerning the event as information becomes available to us. We are forever grateful for your interest and commitment to Meals from the Heartland and look forward to your help as we provide Help for Haiti.

Pray, Serve, Give,
The Meals from the Heartland Team

Mark Aeilts Talking About Haiti on Lite 107.1

We’d like the thank Lite 107.1 for the time and letting us use this segment on our Web site.

If you would like to help Meals from the Heartland and Lutheran Church of Hope with “Help for Haiti,” make sure you click here for more information.

Please check back for additional details.

Mark Aeilts and local school children - Haiti 2008