Volunteers at Stop Hunger Now event package 28,080 meals

As the bang of a gong echoed through the cafeteria, the entire room of 175 volunteers, including 100 SHS students, looked up from their stations filled with plastic bags, funnels, scales and heat sealers, erupting in cheering and applause.

“That’s 20,000 meals packaged!” yelled Stop Hunger Now Program Manager Christopher Romero.

In just two hours, 28,080 meals were packaged in the school’s third annual food packaging event, Stop Hunger Now, held on Feb. 27.

“I've never worked with any non-profit where so much can be done in a few hours, [generating] so much positive energy and happiness in those that come together to do the work,” PTSO volunteer Mary Eschen said. “It's just awesome.”

Stop Hunger Now is an international nonprofit organization that “gets food and life-saving aid to the world’s most vulnerable people, working to end global hunger in our lifetime,” according to the website.

Each meal package costs 29 cents to make. With $2,900 to purchase 10,000 meals, any organization can host a meal packaging event, where volunteers help package meals to send off to impoverished people.

“In January and February alone, we packaged half a million meals — which is a lot, considering we packaged 3 million total last year,” Romero said. “So we’re really, really busy with about 20 events every month.”

In the previous two years that the school has hosted a meal packaging event, PTSO donated 20,000 meal packages.

This year, PTSO teamed up with a local nonprofit called Heaven’s Helping Hands and Saratoga Rotary, which also sponsors the the school’s Interact Club. Each of the three organizations donated 10,000 meal packages for a total of 30,000 meal packages.

The volunteers were unable to fulfill their 30,000 meal package goal as there was a shortage of vegetables, one of the four main components of the meal packages; the other three include rice for carbohydrates, soy for protein and a pack of vitamins.

Nonetheless, the event was a success as the meals were shipped off to the Philippines, where they will feed thousands of children in the school programs that provide impoverished students with hot lunches.

“We live in a very fortunate area, and sometimes we forget that hunger is still a serious problem,” Interact events coordinator junior Eric Wang said. “It was amazing to see so many people from so many different organizations come together to work together towards this common goal and really make a difference.”