REAL LIFE CHURCH MILLION MEALS MARATHON • On Sunday May 1st, 2011, Real Life Church and 12 other local churches suspended their Sunday morning church services to work together to reach the goal of packaging 1 million meals for starving children around the world. This massive undertaking was first sparked by a similar effort on Labor Day 2010. Real Life Church organized the effort, partnering with Children of the Nations (www.cotni.org). This turned into a desire to help in an even larger way. This Santa Clarita valley-wide effort was to package one million meals to send to impoverished nations like Haiti, Malawi, Sierra Leone and the Dominican Republic. Brandon Beard, executive pastor of Outreach at Real Life, said the idea for the Million Meals Marathon came after the church successfully completed the 100,000 meals. “After we did 100,000, we knew we wanted to do more,” Beard said. “We thought, why not do 1 million?”
Real Life Church reached out to other churches across Santa Clarita and asked them to join the effort. Twelve churches responded, happy to be a part of it.
The packages contain “lentils, spice, chicken (powder), rice!!!”. Thirty-six vacuum-sealed bags will be boxed together. Children will be asked to decorate boxes, and draw pictures and write letters to the recipients.The boxes are then loaded onto pallets and into one of four large shipping containers that will hold 250,000 meals each. These containers will be taken to the shipping yard first thing Monday morning. There will be more than 5,400 volunteers that will attend this event across the Santa Clarita Valley, said Bob Palocsay, a representative of Children of the Nations. “Previously, 285,000 meals were packaged on one day,” Palocsay said. “The Million Meals Marathon is the largest food-packaging effort conducted all in one day that Children of the Nations has been involved with.” More than 925 million people in the world are malnourished or starving. The food that will be packaged and sent will feed 2,739 children every day for an entire year. It will help sustain families that may not have been able to survive otherwise. I was grateful to be a small part of this amazing event and capture it in my camera to share with you. In the end, 1,000,512 meals were made! Thank you Real Life Church.
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Copyright © 2011 by Frank Lozano Photography | http://www.franklozano.com
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