Feed My Starving Children

As part of a service project, we went with our Bible study group to the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC, https://www.fmsc.org/) location in Tempe last Saturday...

Before starting our jobs, we were given a presentation about Feed My Starving Children's work.

There were quite a lot of people from many different organizations...

... churches, schools, family groups.

FMSC creates food packs which are shipped out around the world.

We were packing MannaPack Rice, which is what they produce the most of.

A young woman presented the information to us. She was a "blue hat" (the staff have blue hairnets on). We had white hairnets as part of the packaging team (the majority of the folks volunteering are packaging). You can also see some with red hairnets -- they were the "warehouse" staff -- they would bring supplies to the packaging teams and take the finished product away. There were also jobs for those who needed to be seated -- they were putting labels on the bags for the food identifying when and where they were packed.

Some pictures from the presentation

We were briefed on expectations for cleanliness in the process.

Our team being patient while we waited to be called -- some of our team had already left to be on the labeling crew.

When we entered the packaging area, we could see the tables where we'd be working.

First order of business was to wash our hands.

We then donned gloves and found positions around the packaging tables and got to work.

This picture was taken at the end -- we were too busy during the packaging to take any pictures! At the end of our table closest to the camera, our friend Don is standing -- he and Carl scooped the product from those bins in front of him and put them into a large funnel on the blue stand that you may be able to see on the table between Don and me. Dee Dee and I were responsible to get the bags open and positioned under the funnel (an easier-said-than-done task!). Just beyond us there was a lady who would weigh each bag -- they need to be within a certain weight tolerance of grams per bag -- so she would add or remove rice to get it to the right value. She also gave feedback to Carl as his addition of rice could either make the bag too light or too heavy -- she was SO polite - thanking Dee Dee and me whenever we passed her a bag and congratulating the scoopers whenever the amounts were right on target! Just beyond the lady doing the weighing, her husband was sealing the bags and getting them to the boxes. The lady weighing and her husband sealing had come just as the two of them who come in to volunteer once a month or so (not part of our group).

You might notice that the steel table in front of us has quite a bit of product on it at the end of our packaging -- more on that in a couple of pictures.

Some of the other stations in the room as we were finishing up.

The warehouse volunteers (many of whom are through the doorway in the next room wearing red hairnets) were getting the last boxes taken out to the warehouse.

The staff had come through and cleaned up some of the more sensitive equipment (the funnel, particularly). Then it was time for us to clean up our work area. The area under the funnel had quite a bit of product on it (sometimes the scoopers might accidentally pour before the bag was in place, and sometimes the product didn't fall down well into the bag and some fell out when we pulled the bag out from the funnel). That product could go back into the rice bin for filling in the next shift. The product on the table itself was not considered sanitary enough to bag again, so we cleaned it up and put into buckets that are provided to locate livestock growers for animal feed.

Our preparation of the work spaces made them ready for the next set of volunteers who would be arriving within the next hour.

At the end of the session, we were invited to go into the warehouse and pray over some of the product that had been packaged during our session.

Product in the warehouse -- some of these pallets contain finished packages of food to go out, other pallets contain the ingredients that we put together to make the packages of food.

Carl in his "garb" -- guys with beards had to wear beard nets too!

Post-cleaning -- everything is ready for the next shift of volunteers to come in. This is a better view of the funnel too -- and you can see the labeled bags on each side that the packaging team will open and put under the funnel.

Back in the gathering room, we were given information about what had been accomplished during our session. I think that the cost was how much the ingredients cost that we used during our session.

As we were leaving, we could look through a window and see the stations all ready for the volunteers for the next session to come in.

We were grateful to get to participate in this session with our Bible study group and to learn more about Feed My Starving Children. Carl and Sue had participated at the FMSC center in the Chicago area (Naperville) in the early 2000s, but this was my first time to be involved with this ministry.