Cheering on Food Packing Events

Allen and Trish aren’t a couple to let grass grow under their feet. After spending time with family in Florida over the past week, they caught a plane for Maryland, and then drove to Pennsylvania where Trish got to attend her first food packing event. It’s not that the participating church needed them on the premises, but as long as they were in the country, Trish and Allen decided to go up and cheer them on.

While it’s almost certain that no pom-poms were involved, we can all hope that they at least chanted, “Two bits, four bits, six bits, a dollar! All for the food packing events stand up and holler!” 

This photo is from the Lighthouse Church packing event

What did Trish think of the process? She said it was basically what she expected. But it’s sort of like the difference between looking at travel brochures and visiting a destination.

All of the equipment and the bulk food items used are delivered by the organization, Feed My Starving Children. The equipment used is far from exotic. It’s basic stuff like big plastic bins, oversized dishpan sort of things, plastic bags, scoops, funnels, and bag sealers. Since they are doing oatmeal meals, the food supplies include huge bags of oats, sugar, and cinnamon with vitamins mixed in.

The materials are all laid out in the giant dishpan-type dishes. Food is poured into bags with a funnel. Bags are weighed to be sure they contain the right amounts of oats, sugar, cinnamon, and vitamins. Then filled bags are placed into another dishpan-type thing at the end of the table. Typically there are three to four people at each table. When there starts to be a collection of filled bags, other people grab that dishpan and take them to another table to be sealed. The air is pushed out of each bag and the bag is heat sealed. Someone else checks each seal. The bags are counted and packed into boxes.

The Sowerses arrived early to the fellowship hall of Murrysville Alliance Church and there were already five or six women hard at work. Some of the seniors had been meeting and when the meeting ended, those women started packing. Soon other people started showing up. Many of those people had participated in an earlier packing event on Saturday, so they knew what to do. They put on their hairnets, washed their hands, and jumped right in. Trish said that by 6:00, the operation was running at full tilt.

That’s why it was so surprising when Trish went to the kitchen for a drink of water, looked out, and saw that everyone had stopped working. Why? They had run out of the sealable bags. Two churches in the area were packing food, so there were some available bags about an hour away. A runner was sent on the important mission of getting more bags, and there was about an hour where no packing was taking place. Trish was impressed that hardly anyone left during that time. Instead of making a break for it, people spent the time in a Q & A session with Allen and Trish about Sowers4Pastors.

When the bags got there, everyone jumped back in and finished. The church had set the goal that they would use up all of the food they were sent. They did it! Afterward, it was time to clean up the church’s fellowship hall. They had used about fifteen folding tables, and the whole place needed to be wiped down and vacuumed. Newsflash: Oatmeal and cinnamon tend to get everywhere! The group finished at about 10:30.

Dave Murray is the man who put Sowers4Pastors in contact with Murrysville Alliance Church in the first place. The morning after the packing event, Allen and Dave loaded all of the packaged food into Dave’s truck and headed to Sugar Creek, Ohio. There are ongoing packing events there and a filled food container will be going out from there.

New Life Community Church, which provided the emergency replacement bags will be doing their packing events on Oct. 29-31. Allen and Trish will be going up to take part. We’ve got to get those cheerleaders some pom-poms.

- posted by Christi.