Meals from the Heartland is coming to Audubon!  You are invited to a regional mobile Meals from the Heartland food packing event this coming March 15, 2013.  It will be held at the Iowa National Guard Armory in Audubon.  This is a win-win gathering of children, youth, adults and families, to help fight hunger here in Iowa, in the U.S. and throughout the world.  We will have the opportunity to work together, bringing teams of up to10 people of any age grouping to pack for 30-60 minute shifts.  Or you can come to help as an army of one joining with others fighting hunger as a team.

Thousands of people have helped to fight hunger each year during mobile hunger fights and at the signature event, the Annual Hunger Fight, held each fall in Des Moines, at Hy-Vee Hall.  Over 7,760,000 meals were packed in 2012, 5.1 million of these packed at the Annual Hunger Fight.  Each nutritious meal contains rice, textured soy protein, dried vegetable and vitamins and accepted by most cultures throughout the world.  Meals from the Heartland mission partners include the Des Moines Area Religious Council, the Food Bank of Iowa, Convoy of Hope based in Missouri and Blessman Ministries in South Africa.  In 2011, 6.6 million meals were distributed in Iowa, in Gallup New Mexico, by Convoy of Hope in El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Haiti, Kenya, Dominican Republic, Philippines and Ethiopia, by Blessman Ministries in South Africa and in Tanzania.

Our goal is to raise a minimum of $12,000.  The more monies raised, the greater the number of volunteer hunger fighters that will be able to participate.  We are fortunate to already have $7000 of that amount committed from Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church, the Audubon Area Ministerial Association, the Exira/Brayton Co-Op Ministry, the Nishna Valley Shared Ministry and from AMVC, all who are co-sponsoring this opportunity to fight hunger.  Businesses, individual business men and women, church groups, interested individuals, are all invited to consider offering a tax deductible donation.  You may pass along a monetary gift to any of the sponsoring groups, who will then pass them along to Meals from the Heartland for this 2013 food packing event.  Additional sponsoring groups are welcome to join with us in this important local, national and international mission.  Please make checks payable to Meals from the Heartland.

Sign-up sheets for each volunteer or team will be provided at sponsoring group locations in the near future.  A tentative schedule for meal packing will also be provided at that time.

The next planning meeting is set for Thursday, January 24^th, beginning at 6pm, at Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church.  Interested individuals of all ages are invited to join the planning team.

If there are questions please contact: Pastor Doug Opp at 712-563-2625, Lorayne Ringen at 563-212-3826 or Pastor Steven Frock at 712-268-2660

For more information about Meals from the Heartland, visit their website: mealsfromtheheartland.org.