Mad River Valley and Waterbury Rotary packaging 15,000 meals as part of their Rise Against Hunger campaign. Photos: Peter Colgan.

The Mad River Valley Rotary recently partnered with the Waterbury Rotary Club to host a successful Rise Against Hunger meal-packaging event last Saturday, May 21, at Harwood Union Middle and High School. Seventy community members along with youth volunteers packaged 15,000 complete meals of nutritious dried foods for shipment to hungry people around the world. The event was organized by new Mad River Valley Rotary member Ben Olds, Susan Klein and Peter Colgan. “Energizing music provided the inspiration to keep the assembly lines moving efficiently and helped to create a fun event,” reported Rotarian Linda Levin.

Rise Against Hunger is a nonprofit organization whose expanding, global movement is to end hunger by empowering communities, nourishing lives and responding to emergencies. “Rotary works both globally and locally,” said Ben Olds, organizer of the meal packaging event. “Our Mad River Valley club has identified food insecurity as one of our priorities. While our work supporting the Community Pantry and ShareMRV has local impact on this issue, the meals we packed today will go to support school feeding programs in developing countries. That’s in line with several of Rotary’s areas of global focus, which include Child and Maternal Health and Basic Education and Literacy. We love running this event because it’s fun, engages community volunteers of all ages and allows us to expand our reach beyond The Valley.”

Find out more about Rise Against Hunger by going to https://www.riseagainsthunger.org/

To find out how to get involved with the Mad River Valley Rotary, go to https://www.mrvrotary.org/