Thousands of volunteers descend on Osage Centre for food-packing event

This weekend, nearly 5,000 volunteers will fill more than 750,000 meal packs for Feed My Starving Children, an international organization devoted to bringing meals to children who would otherwise go without.

Local organizers Linda Tenkhoff and Linda Watts said this packing event is clearly God’s work.

This event marks the 10th event in nine years for La Croix Church in Cape Girardeau, Watts said.

The first weekend in December, volunteers fill kits over seven two-hour shifts, Watts said.

“There’s a job for everyone,” she said, whether they can sit, stand or lift.

Tenkhoff said the Osage Centre has become the home for La Croix Church’s Feed My Starving Children efforts, as it has a parking lot big enough to accommodate 400 volunteers for each shift and room enough for semi-truck trailers out back that will be loaded with the kits and shipped directly to the people to receive meals.

A group in Jackson, led mainly by New McKendree Church and Crossroads Church, meets in the spring for a smaller meal-packing event.

Tenkhoff said the meals are inexpensive, about 23 cents each.

“A child can be fed for a year for about $80,” she said.

Other churches send donations or volunteers, Tenkhoff said, and called their generosity and that of La Croix Church members “amazing.”

Carrie Wiggins, a development adviser with Feed My Starving Children based in the Chicago area, said she began as a volunteer with Feed My Starving Children in about 2012. But after seeing the power of the food and what it can mean to children, she became a staff member with the organization.

Wiggins said she visited Haiti a month ago.

“What people are willing to do to serve others, it’s amazing and humbling,” she said, adding some people will live on-site at schools to help ensure others have care at all hours.

Wiggins said this was her first visit to Cape Girardeau, but the organization has made a huge difference in a lot of lives around the world.

For Darryl McRaven, who volunteered in the warehouse area Friday night, it’s a chance to help get into the Christmas spirit by helping others.

“We need to do good stuff,” he said.

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

(573) 388-3630

Pertinent address:

Osage Centre, Cape Girardeau, Mo.