Ligonier Township student leads effort to ship enough food to feed 10,000 people
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On Saturday, Braden Myers learned that one 18-year-old can feed 10,000 people — with a little help from his friends.
The home-schooled Ligonier Township high school student organized a food drive as his senior project but decided to make it international in scope.
“I just got so excited to have an intergenerational, community event where we could impact the world and feed people who are less fortunate than ourselves,” Myers said.
Myers raised $3,451 with the help of 14 local sponsors.
And he solicited more than 50 volunteers to go to Ligonier Camp & Conference Center on Saturday to package and box up the meals.
“It was fun. It was a good time. People were really excited,” he said. “Our goal here was just to raise the funds and volunteers and get together for this event and package food together. We’ll wait and see what happens next.”
The ingredients, packaging material and instructions were provided by Rise Against Hunger, a Raleigh, N.C.-based humanitarian aid agency with an office in Pittsburgh. The international relief organization has provided food aid in 78 countries since its founding in 1998, according to its website.
Myers learned about Rise Against Hunger from family friend Joseph Kelly, who is assistant community engagement manager for the Pittsburgh office. Kelly, of Connellsville, took on the job with Rise Against Hunger after working as an intern at Ligonier Camp & Conference Center, where Myers’ father, Patrick, is camp director.
The money raised by Myers covered the cost of the meal ingredients — rice, soy flour, dehydrated vegetables — which are grown in the United States and bought on the commodities market at a discount, according the Rise Against Hunger website.
Volunteers of all ages packaged the meals assembly-line style by pouring the carefully-measured ingredients into sealable plastic bags.
Each bag contains enough for six meals, Kelly said.
“When you use boiling water, a little bit of rice goes a long way,” Kelly said.
The meals also include a packet of nutritional supplements and are usually prepared with extra spices or meat, he said.
10K-plus meals packed
Myers and his friends packaged 10,152 meals Saturday and put them in boxes. Each box holds 216 meals and will be taken to the Rise Against Hunger warehouse in Southwest Greensburg to await shipment, Kelly said.
The nonprofit organization will ship the boxes overseas once it has a shipping container’s worth of meals — about 300,000 meals, he said.
As for which country or countries receive the meals, that depends on which local partner asks for them.
“We wait until our partners reach out to us,” Kelly said. “A lot of the meals go to school programs.”
Myers’ mother, Sandy, was bursting with pride at her son’s accomplishment as she floated from one table to the next Saturday.
“It was neat to see him raise the money. He spent a lot of time on the phone,” she said. “As his mom, it was good to see him start something and finish it.”