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250+ pack food for needy
by Gregory R. Norfleet · News · October 31, 2014
More than 250 people pitched in to help package food for the West Branch Lions Club’s Hoover Hunger Project — a hundred more than requested — and work finished a half an hour ahead of schedule Saturday.
Some 84,000 packages of vitamin-fortified mac & cheese or rice & beans flowed assembly line style over 3 1/2 hours while workers boxed them up and hauled them out on trucks, half bound for local food banks and the other half headed for Kenya.
“I can’t believe we got over 200 volunteers,” Lions Club President Mike Quinlan said, casting a glance across the crowd in the new gymnasium at West Branch High School. “That’s amazing.”
The Lions Club raised some $21,000 to purchase the food products for Saturday’s packaging event, set to align with the 50th anniversary of President Herbert Hoover’s state funeral in West Branch. Several Hoover family members pitched in that day, which also happened to be Make A Difference Day. Volunteers cranked out about 400 meals per minute to get the job done.
“This is outstanding,” project director Greg Humrichouse said, looking over the rows and rows of volunteers pouring ingredients into plastic bags, then weighing, sealing and boxing them. “This is just perfect.”
This reporter found volunteers as young as 2 and as old as 91.
Lions Club member Steven Grace used a public address system from time to time to announce updates of how many meals had been packaged. Lions Club members made sure volunteers had a station to man, or hauled large bags of ingredients to tables for volunteers to break down and bag.
The Lions Club worked with Outreach, based in Union, Iowa, which began in 2004 and has packaged some 262 million meals so far this year and sent them to 17 different countries, according to Outreach Event Coordinator Leon Sporrer.
“This is unbelievable,” he said of Saturday’s turnout.
Later in the afternoon, at a ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the state funeral for President Hoover, World Food Prize Foundation President Kenneth Quinn praised the Hoover Hunger Project and congratulated the Lions Club in his keynote address. It was the only time during the ceremony when the audience interrupted the speaker to applaud.
Volunteers also included University of Iowa football players and wrestlers, high school students earning Silver Cord hours, Lions Club members from surrounding towns, other civic groups, Hoover Complex representatives, state Senator and former Times editor/publisher Vid Johnson, and both District 73 state representative candidates: David Johnson and Bobby Kaufmann. Entire families, business owners, church members and pastors, and several individuals pitched in as well.
Quinlan said some of the area food pantries getting boxes include West Branch, Tipton, West Liberty, Lowden, Mechanicsville, North Liberty, Coralville and Tiffin, as well as the Iowa City Crisis Center.
The food is dry goods which are boiled and drained before serving, and have a shelf life of two years, Quinlan said.
Humrichouse noted that the Lions Club started this project with plans of up to 20,000 food packages, then bumped it up a little more and a little more until member Jerry Fleagle, also executive director of the Hoover Presidential Foundation, suggested the group shoot for 100,000 packages and line up the packaging date with the 50th anniversary of Hoover’s state funeral. Hoover was named The Great Humanitarian after organizing food relief efforts during World War I, saving millions from starvation.
“We came really close to that (100,000),” Humrichouse said. “Jerry was the driving force behind that number.”
Lions Club member Richard Paulus signed in volunteers as they arrived. Some signed up in advance, others appeared and asked to help as well. He ran out of name tags about halfway through the planned four-hour event.
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