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Home > Featured Stories > International Connections > August 2008 > Feeding the WorldFeeding the World
By giving a couple of hours here and there, anyone has the opportunity to make a great impact on someone else's life.
NC State senior Selby Lo
On Saturday, volunteers packed Carmichael Gym to package more than 400,000 meals for the less fortunate.
By Dave Pond, Web Communication
A three-location service event spearheaded by NC State and international hunger relief organization Stop Hunger Now exceeded all expectations, as volunteers packaged more than one million life-saving meals to be distributed to destitute residents of El Salvador, Haiti and India's Marapon district.
"I know that there are people in the world today who will not go hungry because of these efforts," NC State senior Selby Lo said after Saturday's University Million Meals Event. "They'll have a nutritious meal and be able to live their lives the way they want to, without having to worry about where their food will come from when it's time to eat."
Students from NC State and seven additional colleges and universities participated in the event, held concurrently in Raleigh, Greenville and Chapel Hill, putting together a record-breaking 1,010,374 nutritiously balanced meals.
"What we accomplished today is a testament to what can happen when people with a common vision work together," said Mike Giancola, director of the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service at NC State. "Stop Hunger Now’s vision is a world without hunger – a vision that we share at the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics and Public Service and one that more than 4,000 volunteers were exposed to today.
"More than the million meals, having 4,000 people committed to putting an end to hunger, that is the impact of today’s event," he said. "NC State is poised to do more – and together, we can ensure that hunger is erased from our world."
At Carmichael Gym, Service NC State volunteers lined up to contribute more than 400,000 meals alone, besting last year's on-campus total by more than one hundred thousand.
In fact, the waiting list to participate in meal-making was so lengthy that a number of students took part in additional service events - traveling to a local elementary school to help ready buildings for the upcoming academic year and taking part in an American Red Cross blood drive.
"Service NC State continues to grow each year, and so does the demand from students, faculty and staff, as well as members of the university's ENCORE program and other residents from the communities surrounding our campus," Giancola said.
"The simple fact that we had to add projects like these so late in the game really reinforces just how many NC State students and faculty members want to engage in this type of service."
Each meal packed at the million meal event costs 20 cents to make, and includes rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a vitamin-fortified flavoring mix with 21 essential vitamins and minerals. Corporate and individual volunteers donated the $200,000 necessary to make the event possible, while members of the Wolfpack family contributed an additional $7,000 at Saturday's event.
"We have had a partnership with Stop Hunger Now for several years, and as we thought of broadening the vision to do a million meals, we thought it would be best to involve other universities and colleges," Giancola said. "We have the resources to eradicate hunger, but we have to get more people involved in the fight against hunger to make this thing an issue of the past."
Service NC State (SNCS) is sponsored by the Center for Student Leadership, Ethics & Public Service as the definitive service event to welcome new students to NC State's campus, and as a way to impact the community. This event is open to all students, faculty, staff and the Raleigh community and role models the university's mission to impact and support our local and global community.
"There are always less fortunate people in world that need our help," said Lo, a double major in biological sciences and plant biology. "By giving a couple of hours here and there, anyone has the opportunity to make a great impact on someone else's life."
