3,600 in San Diego Packing 1.5 Million Meals to Feed Tijuana, Zambian Poor

“Jesus told us to do this, right? Feed the poor,” said a deacon Saturday.

And so in “a labor of love,” as Caroline Kelner described it, more than 3,600 volunteers gathered this weekend to pack 1.5 million meals for poor people.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of San Diego’s third annual Million Meal Event began Saturday morning at Cathedral Catholic High School on Del Mar Heights Road.

“I like to get children involved because they’re our future, and they need to understand that they have a Christian obligation, moral obligation, to help those in need,” said Kelner, president of the board of Casa de los Pobres in Tijuana, which receives a portion of the boxes of food.

Deacons from the San Diego-Imperial Beach diocese procured hundreds of pounds of rice, lentils and dried vegetables and vitamin and minerals supplements from the Midwest. All trucked in.

The project joined with Kids Around the World, an Illinois-based nonprofit that partners with faith-based ministries to provide 4.5 million meals annually to Zambia to feed 15,000 children daily lunches.

Under numerous covered tables, more than 1,300 volunteers measured ingredients, placed them in bags that were then sealed, and attached a label with the manufacturing date.

Thirty-six bags went into each box, weighing 32.5 pounds when filled.

The afternoon shift involved more than 1,000 volunteers and another 1,000 have signed up for the 12:30 to 3 p.m. Sunday shift.

Upbeat music gave the open area at the high school a festive mood as people inserted the “Bum-bum-bum” to Neil Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline.”

Years ago, several San Diego parishes created meal kits for thousands of people as a local project.

But Jeff Rosene, president and CEO of Kids Around the World, recalls that it was Deacon Mike Daniels of St. Brigid Parish in Pacific Beach that had the dream to expand the effort to feed a million people.

“This is amazing,” Rosene said. “One of my favorite parts is how it brings communities together, brings parishes together. It brings people of all ages together.”

Daniels explained Saturday that leadership in the deacon community “wanted to do something dramatic, so we said, ‘Let’s feed the poor.'”

He added: “This is just our calling as deacons to be servants. This is just a way of being of service to Jesus and the Church.”

A half-million meals will be sent to Tijuana where they are distributed by nuns to the Casa de los Pobles (House of the Poor) and to the Colonias, where the poorest of the poor live in the border area.

A million meals will go to a school in Zambia, central Africa, where lunches will be made with the food packets.

“For a lot of them it is the only meal they get in the day,” Daniels said.

Private donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars, some collected at parishes, bought the ingredients. Major donors have given as much as $25,000, he said. But any amount is welcome.

Greg Wedge of St. Gregory Church in Scripps Ranch said he and his family enjoy doing things for other people, volunteering their time.

“This is a perfect fit,” he said.

Louise Whiting of St. Therese of Carmel parish said of her afternoon volunteering, “I just wanted to help out — those poor people that don’t have anything to eat.”

Katie Brown, a former healthcare employee, talked about helping others outside of one’s own world.

“This is giving to somebody who doesn’t have (food), and I don’t know who they are, and I’ll never find out their name. And that’s OK because they are all God’s kids.”

Brown, 80, who worked with the poor in Ecuador from 2003 to 2019, said: “Love is sacrifice.”

She was asked how long she’d continue doing this.

“I will do this until God tells me I don’t have to,” she said. “Why stop?”

Donations to the Million Meals Event can be made here.