April 11. About 100 volunteers descended on Mt. Zion United Methodist Church Saturday to package 25,000 meals for Stop Hunger Now. It took organizer Sherry Washam two months to organize the event which lasted two hours.

The church’s activity center was filled and bustling with activity.

Stop Hunger Now’s vision is to end world hunger, tens of thousands of meals at a time.

Meal-packaging events can take place either at a Stop Hunger Now warehouse or at the volunteers’ location through a mobile operation that delivers ingredients and supplies. During the event, volunteers work in teams at each packaging station.

At Mt. Zion, volunteers were lined up at tables, scoopng ingredients into meal bags, weighing and seal the bags and boxing and stacking them on pallets to be loaded onto a truck.

A group of 40 to 50 volunteers can package 10,152 meals in about two hours. The meal packaging events are scalable: It’s possible for a large group to package up to 1 million meals.

According to Stop Hunger Now, the assembly process generally combines rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a packet containing 23 essential vitamins and minerals into small meal packages.

The meals are shipped throughout the world to support school feeding programs, orphanages, and crisis relief. The food is stored easily, transported quickly, and has a shelf-life of two years.