By Donna Lemar

Pacelli Middle School science teacher and eighth grade advisor

Pacelli Catholic Schools believe that learning extends beyond the classroom. It is part of our mission to serve others as part of our Catholic identity. In keeping with that purpose, the Pacelli Middle School students traveled to Eagan, Minnesota on September 29 to help pack meals for Feed My Starving Children.

Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God’s starving children. They have a presence in 70 countries world-wide where they ship nutritionally complete meals that have been created for malnourished children. FMSC works from private donations using volunteers to hand-pack the meals which are then donated to food partners around the world who distribute the food to the neediest of God’s children. Ninety percent of all donated funds are used specifically to purchase the food needed to create the meals. Ninety-nine percent of the meal shipments have been successfully distributed to the children who need them.

In the 2005-2006 school year, Pacelli students learned about Feed My Starving children in Venture Magazine, the religion series used at the time. The students were impressed with the way the organization handles all facets of their mission. When they learned that FMSC was started in Minnesota, the students wanted to know if they could volunteer. After learning the details of the age requirements for packing the meals, we took the sixth grade on a trip to Chanhassen for the first of many yearly trips of packing meals for Feed My Starving Children.

For the first few years we took just the sixth graders, then we switched to taking the seventh and eighth graders. Once the decision to create a middle school became a reality, we needed to find a bigger FMSC facility that could handle the larger group. It has now become a yearly tradition for Pacelli middle schoolers and many adult volunteers to make the trip to Eagan to help with the mission of feeding God’s hungry children.

The students do fundraising in order to help pay for some of the supplies of food used up during our packing session. While we are at FMSC, most of the students and adults are on the packing line adding rice, soy, vegetables, and flavoring to plastic pouches which are then sealed by an adult volunteer. Other students and adults work to keep the supplies on the lines full or help in the warehouse by sealing the boxes of food and organize the pallets for shipment. This year we packed 77 boxes which each contained 36 pouches of food. Each pouch holds 6 meals. That comes to packing 16,632 meals — enough to feed 46 children for an entire year.

The reality of the work becomes very evident at the end of the packing session when success stories are shared with the volunteers. The Pacelli family feels strongly about helping feed the most desperate of God’s hungry children. We are pleased to be an important part of the Feed My Starving Children mission to end starvation.

If you are interested in learning more about Pacelli Catholic Schools visit our website at www.pacellischools.org, email admin@pacellischools.org or call 507-437-3278.