About 140 UF/IFAS College of Agricultural and Life Sciences students and community members gathered to pack meals for Rise Against Hunger (RAH), to be sent across the world.
The group set a goal of 25,000 meals packed, which will go to different locations where RAH targets remote communities within hunger pockets designated “serious” or higher on the Global Hunger Index. RAH’s Orlando team, which covers Florida and some of Georgia, has a goal of 2.1 million meals this year.
RAH then partners with other organizations like Convoy of Hope, primarily distributing food through schools and hospitals. Chase Woodburn with RAH said the organization also works with local farmers in the areas to improve practices, using those farmers’ produce to enhance the bland meals packed to be shelf-stable.
Woodburn said RAH aims to work itself out of a job by 2030, mirroring the United Nations’ goal for its sustainability initiatives.
“We primarily focus on food, water, agriculture and infrastructure. So those are our main focuses, but the main model that we use is by feeding the people to make sure that they have the ability to actually invest in themselves,” Woodburn said in an interview.
The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences holds an annual packing party through RAH, and though the event is mainly populated by the college’s students, it is also open to community members.
At several 1,000-meal intervals, volunteers celebrated by ringing a gong, though packages filled quickly enough that not every interval was marked. The group came in two shifts of about 70 volunteers each, and in less than an hour the first shift was ringing the gong to celebrate 8,000 meals packed.
Each meal packet consists of what Woodburn called vegan “rice casserole” ingredients, left bland for communities to transform into their local cuisine. The packets include rice for carbohydrates, textured soy flour for protein, freeze-dried veggies and vitamin packets.
Woodburn said his favorite part of packing events is showing people that volunteering can be fun and fulfilling.
The gong celebrations, and the cheerful pop music playing over volunteers’ conversations, helped create the “fun and fulfilling” atmosphere, which volunteer and UF junior Robbie Belcher said he had heard of and made him want to join in.
“The atmosphere is just so good,” Belcher said. “It’s very positive, very pure.”
Emma Putnam, another junior in the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, said she has volunteered for the event before, and she likes the gong and the way the group works together.
“The first [gong] kind of scares me a little bit, but at the end of the day it’s very fulfilling… it goes by a lot quicker than I think people would imagine,” Putnam said. “There’s so many different stations, and for it to get to us, and it be going as quickly as it is, it makes it look like light work.”
