Orlando Residents Join The Pack to Provide 100,000 Lifesaving Meals
COCONUT CREEK, Fla. (Dec. 3, 2018) Dozens of Orlando-area residents and businesses are teaming up with Food For The Poor to do something different for the holidays. The international relief and development organization will have its Join The Pack event in Orlando to help provide lifesaving food to hungry families in the Caribbean and Latin America.
James Cleveland, owner of Insurance Services of Central Florida, has committed his staff of 10 to Join The Pack, following in the footsteps of his mother who has participated in the South Florida packing event for the past two years. Her team also was the top fundraiser.
“She has made an effort to serve others, and I believe that example is an inspiration to make a difference,” Cleveland said. “I also think it’s important to my wife and me to instill those values in our children and my employees.”
Teams of volunteers will be assigned to work on an assembly line of tables during two packing sessions, 9 to 11 a.m. and 12 to 2 p.m., on Saturday, Dec. 15, at the Englewood Neighborhood Center, 6123 La Costa Drive, Orlando.
The 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 the Minnesota-based organization Feed My Starving Children, a Christian nonprofit that sends prepackaged meals to more than 70 countries.
“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,” said Food For The Poor Executive Director Angel Aloma. “These MannaPack meals are easy to transport and are easy to make. The beauty about this event is that it will only take a couple of hours out of your day and entire families, including young children, can help pack these lifesaving meals together.”
Cleveland, 43, is a father of four and says he and Team ISCF are looking forward to their first food packing event.
“We made a commitment as a company to serve our community and others not as blessed as us,” Cleveland said. “Many of us live our lives so isolated and we have no idea how amazing the blessings are that we take for granted.”
In addition to packing food, each volunteer is asked to donate a new unwrapped toy on the day of the event. Food For The Poor will distribute the toys to Orlando-area children in great need this holiday season with the help of the City of Orlando Neighborhood Centers.
This will be the first time the international relief and development organization will host its Join The Pack event in Central Florida. Each team will consist of at least 10 volunteers committed to raising a total of $500 or $50 per person. Individual volunteers can join an existing team or create their own team.
Funds from the event also will allow Food For The Poor to send orthopedic items, personal hygiene products and school supplies to Puerto Rico as it continues to recover from the impact of Hurricane Maria one year later.
For more information on Join The Pack, including sponsorship opportunities, please call Cassandra Celestin at 954-427-2222, ext. 4020. Or, to register for the event, visit www.FoodForThePoor.org/jointhepack.
Event Sponsors: Sky Light Roofing and Wells Fargo Bank; Teams: Renaissance Charter School and Team ISCF (Insurance Services of Central Florida), Bravo & Friends and Give Unexpectedly.
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, medicines, educational materials, homes, support for orphans and the aged, skills training and micro-enterprise development assistance. For more information, please visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.
Wanda Wright
Public Relations
954-427-2222 x 6079
[email protected]