BOWLING GREEN — Volleyball and volunteering go hand in hand for Bowling Green State University student-athletes Kate Eigner and Sydnie Hernandez.
“We try to get out as much as we can. We genuinely enjoy doing this. We fit it into our schedule,” said Ms. Hernandez, of Bloomington, Ill.
They volunteer with the Bowling Green Kiwanis Club and the Detroit Pistons, helping children with special needs play basketball, said Ms. Eigner, of Bowling Green.
The volleyball players were among 500 volunteers participating in Bowling Green Rotary Club’s Kids Coalition Against Hunger food packing event Friday at the Perry Field House. In a morning and afternoon session, they assembled 70,000 meals for local, national, and international food pantries.
Michael Burwell, executive director of Kids Coalition Against Hunger, which is based in Wixom, Mich., whipped up the volunteers in the morning wave, asking them to throw their hands in the air and wiggle their fingers.
“I really want them to understand that everybody is not blessed with hands, nor fingers, and we’re here for each other,” he said. “Use your hands to bless somebody else.”
Mr. Burwell said the Bowling Green Rotary Club raised $24,000 to create the 70,000 meals, many of which will be dispersed all over the world; one-third will remain locally.
The 390-gram food packet consists of a soy protein, a dehydrated vegetable blend, a vitamin mix, and rice. It tastes a lot like Rice-A-Roni, said some of the taste-testers around a slow cooker that held samples.
“When you mix that one bag with six cups of boiling water, you can feed six adults or 12 kids a highly nutritious meal,” Mr. Burwell said. The cost is 35 cents per meal or $2.10 a packet.
Local pantries that will receive some of the meals include Bowling Green Christian, Greater Grace Christian Church of Toledo, and BGSU Falcon Food Pantry. Brown Bag Food Project in Bowling Green and Islamic Food Bank of Toledo will also get some pallets.
“It’s an awesome outreach and a really great way for people to come together for fellowship and do some good,” Mr. Burwell said.
Kids Coalition Against Hunger travels around the country for these volunteer-driven events, bringing the food and other supplies, he said.
In the field house Friday, volunteers wearing aqua and purple hair nets lined each side of 16 tables, scooping rice, sealing bags, and weighing them.
A group of seven volunteers from A-Gas, a Bowling Green company that recycles refrigerant gases, was gustily assembling meals, whooping and dancing to music that was blaring from the speakers.
“We start with the soy, the first thing, then the chicken, veggies, and rice,” said Cassandra Mulinix, an A-Gas employee and Rotary Club member. “It’s fun and we’re doing it for a good cause.”
Emily Genson, an incoming freshman in the President’s Leadership Academy at BGSU, said they have been on campus for the last month, participating in many service projects.
“This is our last service,” said Ms. Genson, who lives in Weston, Ohio. “We do a service each weekend. Last weekend, we cleaned recycling bins and swept the football stadium, and cleaned up trash on the highway.”
The BGSU men’s soccer team is already getting ready for the fall season.
“We practiced this morning, and then we wanted to come here,” said Andrew Shaffer, a junior from Columbus. “I love this event. I was really impressed with the number of families we’re going to be feeding.”
The students could be future Rotarians.
Trevor Jessee, a Bowling Green Rotary Club member and past president who organized Friday’s event, said members do a monthly collection for food pantries.
“What we saw is an opportunity to make a larger impact,” he said. “The start of this project came to mind ... then how could we organize a one-time community event and how we can get several hundred volunteers.”
It couldn’t have been done without the university, Mr. Jessee said, adding that half of the volunteers were from BGSU and the other half were from the Bowling Green community.
Participating organizations included BGSU Athletics, the BGSU C. Raymond Marvin Center for Student Leadership and Civic Engagement, Bowling Green City Schools, several churches, and city employees.
The Bowling Green Rotary Club has 45 members from different business sectors, said Mr. Jessee, who is a mortgage lender for Civista Bank.
SewHope was another beneficiary of the food assembled on Friday. The Guatemalan-based nonprofit was founded by local OB-GYN and Compassion Health Toledo founder Dr. Anne Ruch and her husband Dr. Randall Ruch in December, 2007.
Board member and education coordinator Roxanne Ward, who is a retired Washington Local Schools teacher, was stationed at the SewHope information booth.
“It’s just amazing,” Ms. Ward said, adding that she’s usually volunteering on the assembly line for the food when these events are in the area. “People come in thinking they’re serving, but then they realize what a blessing it is when they come and do this.”
For more information, visit rotarybg.org and kcah.info .
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