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BCLUW FFA chapter and fourth grade students package 20,000 ‘Meals from the Heartland’

T-R PHOTO BY CHUCK FRIEND
BCLUW FFA members and Fourth grade students join forces to package 20,000 meals for Meals From the Heartland on Friday at the high school in Conrad.

CONRAD — People with hunger needs in Iowa and around the world got a boost from Meals from the Heartland, as the FFA chapter and fourth grade students from BCLUW got together on Friday to package 20,000 dry meals.

According to BCLUW FFA advisor Tara Leytham, the chapter set aside $2,100 to be used to package the 20,000 meals as a way of giving back to the community and others around the world in need of food. Organizing the event was Corinn Swanson, who said that the school did it two years ago and the current FFA members thought that they should do this as a service project again this year as it is a really good thing to do.

“We are all about agriculture and we wanted to get the elementary students involved to see what we as FFA members do,” Leytham said.

The meals consist of soy flour, rice, dried vegetables, protein powder and chicken flavor. When water is added and the meal is prepared, each packet serves six people.

Gerogie Filber, hunger fight manager from Meals from the Heartland, said the Des Moines based company has packaged and sent 140 million meals to more than 30 countries since its beginning in 2006.

T-R PHOTO BY CHUCK FRIEND
Georgie Filber, Hunger Fight Manager of Meals from the Heartland (second from left), receives a check from Corrin Swanson project organizer of the BCLUW FFA. Fourth Grade students Camden Moore and Madden Helms hold samples of the meals that were packaged.

“We like to feel that in addition to packaging meals we are packaging hope and opening up doors to lift up people out if the situations that they are in,” Filber said. “We have amazing partners in Iowa like here at BCLUW and partners all around the world to get our meals to where they are needed the most.”

Meals from the Heartland sends meals to areas where disasters have hit, and to children’s feeding programs for school lunch supplements.

“We love partnering and working with the FFA as we are today because of their leadership and service projects,” Filber said. “And the soy that we use for the flour is actually grown in Iowa. We love being linked to the land and the people of Iowa in what we are doing.”

“It is pretty powerful to see that people from ages five to 95, and people with all kinds of abilities and disabilities can package our meals,” he said.

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