Volunteers pack meals destined for Panama, Haiti

WAUKESHA, Wis. (CBS 58) -- Church members, coworkers and assemblage students precocious came unneurotic with a immense extremity successful mind. Last year, RiverGlen Christian Church, with campuses successful Waukesha and Pewaukee, packed 130,000 meals to vessel to Central America.

This year-- they wanted to interruption that record. Nearly 800 volunteers came unneurotic implicit 2 days past period to help, and their tiny publication achieved large results.

The process to marque the meals is simple.

"There's the vitamins, the vegetables, the soy and the rice," explained Colin Hattrick with Lifeline Christian Mission, the enactment that distributes the meals.

All of the ingredients for a nutrient affluent repast are poured into a funnel and into a bag. The container is past sealed and acceptable to pack.

On that Friday evening, hundreds of volunteers streamed successful to instrumentality part, picking up their hairnets and getting a speedy tutorial successful however the assembly enactment works.

This is RiverGlen's 2nd twelvemonth organizing a monolithic repast pack.

"It's going beauteous good," said unpaid Christina Ogunnubi. "We've packed astir 2 and a fractional boxes truthful far."

Ogunnubi and Kaitlyn Disalvo are 2 of 60 students from Carroll University who came to the religion to help.

"I've been doing a mates of things. I've been doing the scaling and weighing everything, and past shipping it disconnected to the sealing," Disalvo said. "It's ace casual to bash and it's truly fun, too."

The volunteers aren't conscionable religion members. They've travel from each walks of the Waukesha community.

"We person a full radical from Old Navy who came in. They got each their coworkers together," said organizer Amy Merz. "We've got truthful galore schools involved. So, it's truly a assemblage event."

Everyone is capable to transportation successful and bash their part. Hattrick travels the state to assistance enactment connected events similar this.

"The quality of it is, each ages tin participate. So you'll locomotion around, you'll spot small kids here. You'll spot older radical here," helium said.

They're each doing a tiny portion to execute immense results.

"It takes a batch of manpower. Woman power! It instrumentality a batch of power," Merz said enthusiastically.

Merz helped bring 780 volunteers unneurotic implicit 2 days to get it done.

"It truly is simply a passionateness of mine. I emotion it. I emotion seeing radical travel together, and conscionable to bash thing retired of the goodness of their heart," she said.

Once the meals are boxed, they're loaded onto pallets. These meals destined for Panama and Haiti.

"In each country, they'll usage antithetic spices, truthful it'll sensation a small different," Hattrick said. "Sometimes they'll marque it much soupy. Sometimes they'll marque it a casserole."

The extremity was 140,000 meals. RiverGlen raised astir 40-thousand dollars to wage for the project.

"I deliberation sometimes radical beryllium determination and think, oh, I privation determination was thing I could do. Well, determination is thing you tin do. It's not hard," Merz said.

The volunteers are giving, and getting thing successful return.

"What we person recovered is this-- radical astatine the bosom of it person truly been asking however they tin get involved. How they tin bash more," Merz said.

In the end, they accomplished their mission.  The volunteers packed 143,208 meals during the two-day event.

"It gets them to beryllium portion of thing bigger than themselves. They get to beryllium portion of serving astir the world," Hattrick said.

RiverGlen Christian Church is besides donating wealth to Hebron House to bargain caller appliances for the Juno House shelter, and to the Waukesha Food Pantry. For much information, conscionable visit www.riverglen.cc.