More than 600 volunteers gathered at Lakeshore Community Church in Greece this past weekend to pack 163,000 meals for children in need worldwide.
Organized in partnership with Feed My Starving Children, the event brought together individuals and groups — including Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts and other local organizations — to combat global hunger.
The meal packs, containing rice, soy, vegetables, vitamins and what FMSC calls a “fifth ingredient” of love, will be distributed to communities in need in Haiti, Ukraine, South Sudan, and other countries.
Donations totaling $48,000, raised through Lakeshore’s "Making Waves 2025" campaign, funded the meals.
Event organizer Steven Lamy said the event addressed both immediate and long-term needs.
“Someone dies of hunger-related issues every four seconds, so it's a huge issue. The first order of business is to get food to where it's needed so people don't die of hunger," he said. "But really, there's other needs we're meeting here along the way. Because if a child is starving and hungry, they're not going to school, they're not growing mentally as well as physically.”
This annual gathering is part of Lakeshore’s decade-long collaboration with FMSC. Over the years, the church has packed more than 1.6 million meals for distribution worldwide.
Long-time volunteer and church leader Mike Grugnale said this community-driven initiative emboldens people to help.
“Everybody wants to make a difference, and sometimes they don’t know what to do or how to do it. Bringing it to them has worked really well, where we can impact not only the folks that we give food to but the 600 volunteers that come each and every year for this event," he said.
According to the World Food Program, nearly 282 million people faced food insecurity in 2023.
