In collaboration with the Cairo Kids Against Hunger and the First United Methodist Church of Bainbridge, Bainbridge Rotary Club members packaged food at the Tuesday meeting this week for the Community Food Bank, housed at First United Methodist Church. They were assisted by students from Grace and BHS who are members of Rotary Interact clubs at their respective schools.

Kids Against Hunger in Cairo is part of a national organization. According to Anne Horne, co-founder and director of the Cairo chapter, they have been packaging and shipping dried food for 11 years. There has been a concentration on product geared internationally, to feed nutritionally malnourished and starving peoples. Now about half of the food packages are going to those in Georgia she described as “food insecure.” The others are currently going to Mission of Hope in Haiti.

The ingredients in the local packages vary somewhat from the packages distributed internationally. The packages for the Community Food Bank housed at the Methodist Church have a base of long grain rice, dried black beans, and vegetable proteins. They are placed in a bag along with peanut butter and other dry goods. Terri Fleetwood and Ann Brannen are co-chairs of the local food bank.

Brannen said the Food Bank has been operating for five or six years. It all began as people would come by the church looking for food. It has now grown to 12 to 14 volunteers who help distribute the bags of food each Tuesdays from 9 to 10 a.m. Brannen said they receive 33 boxes at a time of the pre-packaged food and distribute anywhere from 36 to 48 bags per week.

Horne said they were doing the packaging with the Rotary Club this week to help promote World Hunger and Wellness Month. The food packaged on Tuesday will all go to the Methodist church food bank and will create 7,128 meals for 1,188 families at cost of 25 cents a meal. Horne said her organization will distribute 150,000 meals in the month of October, with half going to Haiti and half staying in Georgia.

They will spend the next few weeks fundraising. People who donate $9 will feed one child for a month. $10 feeds 40 children one meal a day and $54 feeds six children for a month.

To learn more about Kids Against Hunger, visit the website, www.KAHCairo.org.