Jeremy Bollin, Sarah Jentz and Mel Lehmann measure rice, dry protein and flavoring into bags at the Kids Against Hunger event Friday at Gehlen. Volunteers packed about 200,000 dry meals. The meals were packed onto a large shipping container which was taken to Mississippi by semi over the weekend, then loaded onto a ship headed for Honduras this week. [Click to enlarge]

On Friday, students, volunteers and staff at Gehlen Catholic Schools worked for 12 hours straight on a project that will put nutritious meals in the hands of Hondurans.

At the third-annual Kids Against Hunger (KAH) food packing event, they bagged and sealed about 200,000 dry rice and protein meals that will arrive in Honduras within weeks.

Volunteers worked assembly-line style Friday at Gehlen to pack thousands of meals to be shipped to Honduras. Even after school hours, the gym was buzzing with students and adults working together on the meal-packing project. [Click to enlarge]

"The ship sails on Monday from Gulf Port, Mississippi," said Gehlen's KAH coordinator Richard Seivert at the event. "The food people bagged today will be in the hands of the very poor and very hungry in Honduras within three weeks. It's kind of cool when you realize that."

The cost of food in Honduras has doubled and even tripled, he said. Even the Le Mars food-packing event was affected by higher prices.

A year ago, the 50-pound bags of rice they use in the dry meals cost $11.50.

The rice used Friday cost up to $23 a bag.

"That's more than double," Seivert said.

To help cover the cost of the meal packing and delivery, students and volunteers contributed about $30 each.

"Most the time when you give, you hand charities a check and don't necessarily see what happens with it, but here you own your own labor," Seivert said. "The kids own the boxes, the bags, the pallets. They pay for the shipping."

The students weren't complaining. Even when the school day was over, students were still in the Gehlen gym, packing bags with adult volunteers.

"I've always wanted to help the poor people in the world," said Gehlen junior Christie Dockets. "We're making a difference in the world."

One of the adults, Misty Szczech, said the liked that the event involves students from transitional kindergarten all the way up to seniors in high school. It's a tangible way to help, she said.

"Even the kids that are so little really get it," she said.

Elijah Freking, 8, spooned chicken flavoring into the bags with Szczech, and he said he didn't mind working.

"Some kids don't get very much food," he said.

The event involved people from across the community and beyond. A number of Le Mars Community School students volunteered time and money to help pack meals. Another 40 students from Everly contributed as well. The meals at the Gehlen event were packed into a large shipping container on a semi trailer with meals packed by other events around the area: Spaulding Catholic, Pocahontas and Hawarden.

"And we've had a lot of donations," Seivert said. "I even had former graduates Fed Ex me checks overnight so they'd get here in time."

One of the volunteers on Friday, Therese Freking, who has three grandkids at Gehlen, said she can see why people support the food-packing event.

"Through this kind of organization, you know it's going to get to hungry people," Freking said.