Community Spotlight: Harvest UMC Donates $17,227 to Stop Hunger Now

LAKEWOOD RANCH – Harvest United Methodist Church will donate $17,227 – half of its 2013 Christmas Eve offering – to Stop Hunger Now on Sunday, Feb. 23 at an interactive meal packaging party at the church. Harvest expects almost 40,000 meals will be packed to support Stop Hunger Now’s world-wide work, which includes on-going hunger relief operations in the Philippines in response to Typhoon Haiyan.

Harvest invites the community to join the over 100 expected church members for the meal packaging party from 1:00 – 3:00 pm on Feb. 23. Participants can register to serve at the event at events.stophungernow.org/HarvestUMC. Harvest is located at 14305 Covenant Way, Lakewood Ranch, FL 34202.

More than 250,000 volunteers have packaged meals through Stop Hunger Now's meal packaging program. The parties are fun, hands-on mission projects suitable for all ages. Their assembly process combines rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and a flavoring mix including 21 essential vitamins and minerals into small meal packages. These meal packages are shipped around the world to support school feeding programs and crisis relief. The food stores easily, transports quickly and has a shelf-life of two years.

Stop Hunger Now is an international hunger relief agency that has been fulfilling its commitment to end hunger for more than 15 years. Since 1998, the organization has coordinated the distribution of food and other lifesaving aid to children and families in countries all over the world. For more information, visit www.stophungernow.org.

Sunday’s party is part of the Florida Conference of the United Methodist Church’s “A Million Reasons” campaign – a yearlong Conference mission to pack 1,000,000 meals to fight hunger. Earlier in February, Harvest donated the other half of its Christmas Eve offering (also $17,227) to Take Stock in Children of Manatee County.

Members of the media are encouraged to contact Harvest’s director of discipleship Mike Kennedy at 941.907.7333 or mkennedy@harvest-umc.org for more information.