LT to honor King’s legacy with food packing event to feed undernourished children

The month of December may be behind them for another year, but the season of giving is still going strong for the students and staff at Lyons Township High School.

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s legacy of service, Lyons Township is partnering with the Feed My Starving Children organization to host a food-packing event to help fight world hunger.

“Service is really important to us,” Lyons Township High School Principal Jennifer Tyrrell said. “We’ve been talking about trying to organize a larger-scale service project at the school level and one of our administrators learned about the mobile pack events.”

On Jan. 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Lyons Township will transform the South campus field house into a mobile pack site with the goal of packing more than 100,000 nutritious meals, which will be shipped to undernourished children across the globe.

The community is invited to help with the endeavor through donations. Lyons Township High School has set a fundraising goal of $25,000 to cover setup costs and pay for the food and supplies needed for the packing event.

“Doing something together for the good of others is powerful in itself, but then the fact that the result is 100,000 meals, that’s really significant,” Tyrrell said. “It’s something students can point to and say, ‘I was part of that effort that was way bigger than myself.’”

Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit organization founded in 1987, tackles world hunger by sending volunteer-packed, nutritious meals to 70 countries, according to the organization’s website. They also operate orphanages, schools, clinics and feeding programs to break the cycle of poverty. FMSC has sent food to 109 countries since March 2009, according to the website.

Tyrrell is excited about the January initiative.

“Things like this can spark a desire to do more and that’s part of what we want to develop at Lyons Township: students who are not only strong in the classroom, but who also have a positive impact outside the classroom,” she said.

Because each Feed My Starving Children “MannaPack” meal costs less than 25 cents to make, donations of any size can go a long way in the fight against world hunger. More than 91% of every dollar donated goes directly toward feeding children, according to the FMSC website.

“We know people have different abilities, so any amount is appreciated,” Tyrrell said.

Lyons Township students have been doing their own fundraising for the endeavor.

“Slowly but surely we’re getting there, but we have a ways to go,” Tyrrell said.

For information about the Lyons Township High School MobilePack event or to donate, visit www.lths.net/fmsc. Information about Feed My Starving Children can be found at www.fmsc.org.