The Ramos Family

While the kids were off of school during MEA week, Paul's co-worker, her family, our family and TJ & Noah volunteered at Feed My Starving Children. I had heard of Feed My Starving Children before, had spoken to those that had volunteered their time there but hadn't yet had (or should I say taken) the opportunity to experience it myself. They have several different locations and we went to the one in Eagan since Paul and his co-worker, Nicole, were actually working that day and it was close to the UPS hub. They start out with all of the volunteers in a sitting area, sort of like a presentation room - and they talk about how it got started and then proceed to show examples of kids before and after they received the food through the program. It was interesting, enlightening, saddening - lots of different emotions flowed through me as I listened to George explain it all to us. To help us understand how bad it is for these people, George showed us a sample of a 'mud pie'. They literally take dirt, mix it with water and shape it into a circle and let it bake in the sun. These sell anywhere from $.02-$.05 each - for DIRT. There is absolutely no nutritive value, they simply eat it to curb the hunger pains. They are even seeing people eating pebbles, which the body is unable to digest and requires surgery to remove them. Can you even imagine - with all of the choices we have in what we eat everyday - that there are people who have absolutely NOTHING to eat? They showed us a picture of a six year old girl before she started receiving food through the program, she weighed 15 lbs, literally skin and bones. I think that had such a huge impact on me because Maria is six years old, and this little six year old girl weighed less than Lorenzo - our six month old!

Some of you may already know the story but....the founder of Feed My Starving Children started it back in 1987 after a trip to Honduras because he wanted to do something about all of the people there that were nearing death due to starvation. He had initially sent nutrition and candy bars back to Honduras but unfortunately, their bodies couldn't handle the richness of those foods and it actually made them sick. He then went to food companies and asked them to come up with something that would give these people the nutrition they needed, bring them back from the brink of death and would 'stay down' (i.e. their systems wouldn't reject it). What they came up with was a combination - chicken, veggies, soy & rice. Here's a little video of our assembly line!



The kids had so much fun putting the meals together. We tried to make sure each kid got a chance to do all of the different jobs. Nicole and her husband, John, have two daughters - Paige & Hailey. All the kids did a great job (the adults too, of course :)! After we were all done, I went home to pick up Bella and meet up with the rest of them at Cece's pizza back in Eagan. There was no shortage of food there, that's for sure! Bella wasn't able to come with to volunteer because kids have to be at least five years old in order to be there. She can't wait until she turns five so she can come with!

On one of the videos they showed us at Feed My Starving Children, there was a girl who was celebrating her birthday with her family and friends. We had asked Maria after we were all done if she wanted to have her birthday party there and she said 'yeah'! George was nearby and he said they only have one requirement for birthday's - you have to bring cake and chocolate ice cream! Maria said we'd do that for sure! I love that they get kids involved at such a young age - I think when they see kids their own age in pictures before and after - it really has an impact. We're hoping to become regular volunteers there.