Helping Feed The Hungry Is The Inspiration Behind 6th Annual Kids Against Hunger Concert
Christian Rock band ‘Piercing The Darkness’ is seen here playing at the ‘Kids Against Hunger’ concert Saturday evening.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – A whole lot of food, and an extra loud serving of some Christian music highlighted an evening of events at the Oskaloosa Presbyterian Church Saturday.
The 6th Annual Kids Against Hunger concert made its debut in Oskaloosa after having spent its first five years in Keswick.
Steve Shettler, with the band ‘Piercing the Darkness’, helped to organize the evening, that started off with a food packing line that went from 5 to 6 pm. “We packaged over six thousand meals,” Shettler said. He explained that three different “assembly lines” were used to help make the process most efficient.
The ingredients used in the meals can feed a family of 4 for one meal, and can easily be absorbed by the body, helping those with even the worst cases of starvation, where many times food no longer helps because their body won’t absorb the nutrients. “This stuff actually reverses the starvation process,” Shettler explained.
The packaged meals are then sent throughout the world, including to those in need here in the United States.
The second part of the evening was a showcase of Christian musical talent with local singer Paul Williams, ‘Breaking Adam’, ‘Piercing the Darkness’ and the Presbyterian Churches very own, ‘Revelation’. During the concert, the free-will offering was going to go entirely to ‘Kids Against Hunger’.
Shettler said the offering could then be used to offset the cost of the meals that were packaged earlier in the evening. Each of the packaged meals cost under a quarter to produce, and will feed a family of four.
Don and Sandee Fields of Brighton, Iowa help coordinate ‘Kids Against Hunger’ across southern portions of Iowa. The couple transplanted themselves from the Cedar Rapids area to Brighton, where they bought a warehouse that eventually became the location for ‘Kids Against Hunger’.
Fields explained that the 6264 meals packaged Saturday evening will be on a load to Honduras. The mountainous region that is home to a mission, school and orphanage will help disperse the meals.
Fields said that he and his wife run 18 packaging centers in Iowa. In addition to that, they also have 3 mobile units for use all over the state. “We work in seven nations,” Fields explained. They work with American missionaries, that work long term in areas, such as those in Honduras. “We are supplying the food for these kids to get an education so they can grow up and they change their nations. It’s a slow process, but it’s the only way it works.”
“By the semi loads,” is how Fields gets the food. The rice comes from a manufacturer in Missouri, with the soy coming from Illinois and the vitamins that are added come from Wisconsin. The boxes are from Minnesota, “we buy directly from the suppliers,” explained Fields of the extensive operation used to help make it all happen.
“We will probably do over 4 million meals overseas this year”, was the estimate given by Fields. Two-hundred and fifty-thousand of those are packaged right here in Iowa every year.
