By Erica Rohde
Staff Writer
In 2010, volunteers at Feed My Starving Children packing events packed over 32 million meals of rice, chicken and other protein based food packages to starving children across the globe.
Among the volunteers, Coppell High School junior Maggie Boreham was making the decision to get more involved.
When Boreham volunteered with her family at her first mobile food-packing event, she learned of the amount of poverty and starvation of children in over 150 countries in desperate need of food.
“They needed all of the help they could get,” Boreham said. “There just has to be something there for these kids.”
Boreham saw the difference the events made through pictures and films following the children’s lives. Little girls and boys weighing only 14 pounds at age 3 were fed to become big and strong.
Boreham’s passion for change led to the first Feed My Starving Children club at CHS, and sophomore club treasurer Centura Anbarasu as well as many other friends joined the cause.
“I think now they do not show as much footage of these kids because there are little kids that come to volunteer and they do not want them too traumatized,” Anbarasu said of attending one of the packing events. “It made us cry. It was about a little kid and they followed their family around. We saw all of the hardships that they go through.”
The club originated this semester, with Boreham having definite goals in mind as her experiences with FMSC aided her decisions.
“We want to see if one day we can host our own mobile packing event that we set up and we host,” Boreham said. “The rest of the money would go towards volunteer donations. Every time you volunteer you have the option to send $45 to the organization.”
During the first few club meetings Boreham and other club members talked of putting 40 percent of the money raised into their savings to host an event with the other 60 percent straight towards the organization itself.
“We are going to put this money towards helping people, not towards having socials or anything like that,” Boreham said.
The money will be raised by various club projects that might even begin this school year. Nothing has been confirmed, though the ideas are set.
“We are thinking about sometime before summer having a car wash to get us started, and then later a garage sale or a clothes swap or something like that,” Boreham said. “We are going to start small, but there will be more to come.”
Hosting a mobile packing event is costly, and in this case money is time. Boreham recognizes that the presidential torch might have to be passed to another before the club could have the opportunity.
Anbarasu is bringing her own experiences to organize cash made and where to distribute it.
“I have been working for them for probably four years now,” Anbarasu said. “I am going to help try and bring in my past experiences to help the club, and I have worked directly for the people who organize the events. But every packing event is hosted by different people.”
Money is one option, but club sponsor and assistant choir director Will Mclean had seen items other than dollar bills raised during his college days.
“There were concerts on campus where the only thing we had to bring to get in was a non-perishable food item,” Mclean said. “They also had once a semester volunteer opportunities with clothing drives. Everything would go directly to FMSC.”
Along with sending clothes, FMSC also partners with the Global Orphan Outreach organization that couples orphaned children with foster parents and provides nutrition.
Once the money is donated to FMSC, it is used for not only clothes and foster care, but is also used for such causes as perfecting the food.
“It is something that is necessary,” Boreham said. “The way that they feed the kids is helpful. They use this protein based dish, rice, chicken, protein powder, vegetables. You cannot just give malnourished kids a [protein] bar. Their bodies will not be able to process that. FMSC always works to better the nutrition packages. They make it so it is the best food to put into their bodies.”
