In Gehlen Catholic School's gymnasium on Friday, students and volunteers were hard at work bagging dried meals to be sent to Africa and Honduras. From left: Sister Christine Elias, Taylor Peters, Trevor Bouba, Solomon Freking, Nathan Klein and Evan Niebuhr. [Click to enlarge]

Households waste 14 percent of the food they buy, according to a recent study from the University of Arizona in Tucson.

But the scene in the gymnasium at Gehlen Catholic Schools on Friday was the opposite of wasteful.

Dozens of students and volunteers wearing white hats bustle around, carrying huge loads of rice, scooping dried vegetables into bags, weighing and sealing sacks.

A buzzer sounds. All activity stops, and Richard Seivert's voice comes over the loudspeaker: "Look at the scoreboard everyone."

In the home and visitor's boxes, the numbers read 83,116. It's 11 a.m., and they're nearly halfway there. Cheers erupt across the gym. But within seconds it's back to the quiet hum.

For the eight-hour meal packing event with Kids Against Hunger, Gehlen set the goal to assemble 250,000 meals in dry kits to send to Honduras and Africa.

By the end of the day, they met that goal. Then they surpassed it.

"We packed 261,360 meals," said Lisa Niebuhr of Gehlen Catholic. "We had some hard workers.

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The room was one giant assembly line. Teams at each table measured ingredients into plastic bags. They estimated it took 4.5 seconds to make one kit, which feeds six people.

Visitors from other schools are here to watch how the process works to see if they can get one started back home.

Fifty people from Holy Cross middle school in Sioux City came and tried meal-packing. Others stand on the sidelines and observe.

"The fact that it's so tangible is great," said Sean Mullin, from St. Thomas More school in Rapid City.

They're planning a meal-packing next spring and came to see how the whole setup works.

"You learn by doing it," said Mark Schlesser, co-chair of the packing event with Charlie Oetken.

Before they started setting up Gehlen's first event last year, they visited another packing in Mankato, Minn., he explained.

Setting up the event is a lot of work, but Schlesser says it's worth it.

"The students are asked to pay $20 and they can come in and help pack food," he said.

They payoff, he said, is them getting to see first hand they're making a difference."

"I really think it shows what values students have, to spend our money to feed others," said freshman Kayla Holtgrewe.

"I didn't really care about the $20," said freshman Paige Ellensohn. "It's great to know that we're helping people."

She admitted she kind of wondered what the meals tasted like.

Freshman Shaun Ryan said he'd be willing to give them a try.

"I hear they're good," he said.