In the span of a few hours Saturday, volunteers at Mount Pleasant Christian Church will ensure that 400,000 people in Cuba have nutritious food.
But the church needs more help in order to meet their goal.
Mount Pleasant will host a massive meal-packing event this weekend, the fourth consecutive year church leaders have organized a food ministry event. Children and adults will put together packages of rice, soy, dried vegetables and a nutrient mix rich in iron, zinc, vitamin A and vitamin B12.
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The event is part of the church’s Go Change the World effort, a yearly focus on service locally and internationally. For organizers, the campaign is an opportunity to expand beyond normal church activities to make an impact in the community.
“Our mission is changing the world one life, one family, one opportunity at a time, so we’ve just tried to create those changes to serve,” said Heidi Wright, service coordinator for the church. “We wanted to find something that people of all ages could do, and this was the best way to do that.”
The meal-packing event is made possible through a partnership with Pack Away Hunger, a Beech Grove-based organization which organizes meal packaging to help reduce hunger and malnutrition locally and around the world.
Mount Pleasant has decided that these meals will go entirely to Cuba, where the church works with New Pines Seminary. The school has a main campus in the city of Santa Clara, and seven other locations throughout the country. The meals will be distributed to the hungry throughout Cuba, Wright said.
Last year, the church also sent meals to Cuba, and the reports they heard from their mission partner was that the food made a huge impact in the country’s poor communities, Wright said. That motivated Mount Pleasant to help that area again.
“They said it couldn’t have had a larger, more real impact on the need of the people who were hungry,” Wright said. “Sometimes people question whether something like this is actually making an impact in people’s lives, and the reality is that people who are hungry are eating in another country where people aren’t as privileged as we are.”
Volunteers have signed up for three different shifts for the meal-packing event. Everyone will be trained on how to put together the meals, then move to the church’s Community Life Center to form an assembly line. Some people will fill each bag with rice or soy, others will add the vitamin mix.
“It’s fantastic when you’re here and you see the families serving together, kids from 5 years old all the way up to grandparents. They come and serve as one, and it’s really moving,” Wright said.
In order to create the 400,000 planned meals, church officials estimate they need 1,800 volunteers to sign up. As of Thursday morning, they still needed to fill about 400 slots. People can still sign up on the Mount Pleasant website, Wright said.
The meal-packing event is the second portion of the Go Change the World effort this year. On April 21, church members and other volunteers came together to pre-construct walls for a pair of homes being built in the Old Southside neighborhood of downtown Indianapolis.
Mount Pleasant Christian Church has started an outreach ministry in the neighborhood, with plans to open a second campus in the area later in 2018.
The walls volunteers built will help construct two homes for needy families in the area.
“The two families that will be living in the homes, the mom and kids, were there helping with us. One of the little guys was carrying around a hammer and kept saying, ‘I’m going to build my house.’ Talk about a powerful statement,” Wright said.
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Go Change the World
What: A community service effort to package 400,000 meals for needy people in Cuba.
Where: Mount Pleasant Christian Church, 407 N. Bluff Road, Greenwood
When: 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday. People can sign up to work two-hour shifts starting at 8:30 and 10:30 a.m., and 1 p.m.
How to get involved: Go to mpcc.info, and click on the Go Change the World icon on the website to sign up online. People may also call Heidi Wright at 317-881-6727 ext. 246.
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