Sue Kiesewetter reports:
A growing crisis in Syria has prompted a Liberty Township-based charity to ask the community for help in packing nutritious meals for refugee children.
Kids Against Hunger plans to pack 300,000 of its vacuum-sealed, nutrition-rich meals, over two weeks for shipment to Jordan where many refugees from Syria have fled.
To meet that goal the non-profit group has set a goal of packaging 100,000 meals on Sept. 8.
“If we have 300 volunteers we should be able to get it done by noon or 12:30,’’ said Larry Bergeron, founder.
Along with help in processing and packaging the food, about $75,000 to pay for the ingredients is needed.
“We’re asking the volunteers to help if they can,” Bergeron said. “It costs just 25 cents per day. If someone donated $10, they could feed a child for a year.”
From Aug. 21-27 more than 10,000 Syrian refugees crossed into Jordan, more than double the 4,500 that fled to Jordan the previous week, Bergeron said. That’s why his organization wants to get the food shipped as quickly as possible.
“We know children are hurting and people want to help,” he said. “We’re taking it on faith that people here will step up.”
In the past year 12 rail cars filled with food have been shipped to Dadaab to help feed Somali refugees. This summer four rail cars of food were shipped to Zambia, which has the highest orphan population in the world, Bergeron said.
“We are constantly shipping food. We see children suffering locally, regionally and internationally and we try to get food to them. We’ve shipped well over 800 tons in the four years we’ve existed.”
Those who want to help pack food at the organization’s Springdale packing facility, 2430 E. Kemper Road, can sign up online at http://www.achildshopeintl.org/Volunteer.html.
Packing begins at 9 a.m.
Those who want to donate can do online or by mailing checks to parent group A Child’s Hope International Inc., 2430 E. Kemper Road, Cincinnati, OH 45241
For more information, call 513-771-2244.
Posted in: News |
