Project prepares food for Haitian orphanage

Representatives of three organizations joined forces at the Rocky Mountain Roller Hockey Arena in Lakewood Aug. 22 and, in about four hours, packaged ingredients for thousands of meals being sent to an orphanage for special-needs children in Haiti.

Activ8Sports, a Christian sports organization, spearheaded the activity and the enlistment of volunteers, while Rocky Mountain Hockey Arena provided the location, and Feed My Starving Children provided all the materials and ingredients for the events.

“We felt this would be a good project for us, and we worked with Justin BaanHofman, who had organized a mobile pack project last year in cooperation with the Feed My Starving Children organization out of Minneapolis,” said Scott Russomanno, Activ8Sports president. “We put out the word, they advertised on K-Love Christian radio station, and we have about 600 volunteers here today to pack the meals.”

The Highlands Ranch resident said many of the Aug. 22 volunteers were special-needs individuals, which he said is important because the meals they are packing are going to an orphanage in Haiti for children with special needs.

He said he considered the day a success as the volunteers from all over the metro area packed a total of 132,192 meals that will be sent to the Haitian orphanage.

When volunteers moved to packing stations, Colton Vigil rolled his wheelchair up to the edge of the table and staffed the machine that heat-sealed the plastic bags containing meal ingredients.

“I go to Red Rocks Church, and when they said they were looking for volunteers for this project, I signed up,” the Lakewood man said. “I did one of these events before, but I wanted to be a part of this one because the food is going to help children with special needs.”

Adults and children from around the metro area took their places at the packing stations. At one station, Jaden Dunham of Westminster Cub Scout Pack 216 was hard at work while at the next packing station, Allie Taylor of Castle Rock pressed down on the device that heat-sealed the meal packets.

Kelly Raab and her two children, Josie, 10, and Calvin, 13, were among the volunteers preparing the plastic bags that were to be filled with the ingredients for the meals.

“I signed up through my company and asked my children to join me,” the Littleton resident said. “I think this is an awesome project. It is well planned, well organized and will help feed a lot of kids.”

Josie said she, too, thought this was a special project, and she liked the fact they were helping provide food for kids who don’t even have enough to eat.

The volunteers attended a short briefing and then moved out onto the floor of the roller hockey rink to staff one of the 32 packing stations. It just took a few minutes for all volunteers to fit right into the well-organized process.

There were volunteers of all ages hard at work. For example, John Reynolds was scooping up cups of white rice for the mixture while at an adjacent station, the youngest “volunteer” at the event, 10-month-old Aliyah Gochanour, was in a pouch carried by her mother, Tanesha Gochanour of Littleton

Feed My Starving Children works with local organizers around the country to hold mobile packing events, providing the ingredients that are mixed together in plastic bags that hold what is needed to make six one-cup meals. When the ingredients in one plastic bag are cooked in hot water, it becomes six one-cup servings of a hot cereal-like blend.

On Aug. 22, there were four ingredients blended together in the packages. There were small scoops of vitamin meal and mixed dehydrated potatoes and carrots. Next a cup of soy meal and a cup of white rice were added to the mixture. The mixture was placed in a plastic bag weighing between 380 and 400 grams. The bags were heat-sealed and packed into boxes, the boxes were stacked on pallets, and the pallets were wrapped in plastic to make them ready to be shipped to Haiti.

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