Meal Pack to Honor Memory of Marjory Stoneman Douglas Victims
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Feb. 11, 2019) Hundreds of volunteers will gather to pack meals Thursday and Friday to remember the students, teachers and staff killed and injured in a deadly shooting one year ago at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.
Food For The Poor is supporting the Minnesota-based organization Feed My Starving Children, its longtime partner, that will host a special mobile packing event.
Volunteers hope to pack more than 700,000 meals over the two days.
Food For The Poor is providing a forklift as well as a team of employees who will pack meals on Thursday at Parkland Recreational and Enrichment Center, 10561 Trails End, Parkland.
The Broward School District is recognizing the first anniversary of the shooting with a Day of Service and Love at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. It follows in the tradition of Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., which has held a day of service every year on the anniversary of the April 20, 1999, shooting there that left 13 people dead.
For more than a decade, Feed My Starving Children and Food For The Poor have worked together to provide meals to feed tens of thousands of children throughout the Caribbean and Latin America.
Food For The Poor Vice President Mark Khouri, who will lead the charity’s packing team on Thursday, said the first anniversary of the shooting is on the minds of many, including several FFP employees with children who attend the school, or graduated last year. The charity is headquartered in Coconut Creek, which borders Parkland.
“We’re honored to join with our partner and participate in this packing event, which will remind us about the lives of those lost while also providing hope for starving families in the countries where we serve,” Khouri said.
At the packing event, volunteers will fill plastic bags with cups of white rice and soy pellets, scoops of freeze-dried vegetables and flavoring containing essential vitamins and nutrients. The dehydrated food mixtures are provided by Feed My Starving Children, a Christian nonprofit that sends prepackaged MannaPack meals to more than 70 countries.
Denise Michael, an employee of the charity, will pack meals Thursday. Her daughter, Alexis, graduated from the school last year.
“We need something like this to unite us instead of divide us,” Michael said. “It’s a peaceful way to help poor children in other countries. It’s going to be emotional.”
Also commemorating the day, students at Atlantic Technical College, in Coconut Creek, will collect school supplies and baby items such as diapers and wipes and deliver them to Food For The Poor next week.
“We want to thank Atlantic Technical College for thinking of the poor,” Khouri said. “Many young lives will be blessed through the actions of students at the school.”
Volunteers can sign up for the event at give.fmsc.org/parkland.
Food For The Poor, one of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, does much more than feed millions of the hungry poor primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. This interdenominational Christian ministry provides emergency relief assistance, clean water, medicine, educational materials, homes, support for orphaned or abandoned children, care for the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.
Michael Turnbell
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6054
[email protected]