Feeding Children Everywhere group packages 25,000 meals for food bank

Approximately 75 volunteers assembled more than 85 food boxes with lentil casserole meal bags at the National Lentil Festival Saturday. The three-hour project was conducted by Feeding Children Everywhere in conjunction with Decagon Devices, Inc., and the Moscow Idaho Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The boxes were donated to the Trinity Baptist Food Bank in Moscow.

These lentil casserole bags packaged at the Lentil Festival Aug. 20 make six meals each.

Around 75 volunteers showed up at the National Lentil Festival Saturday afternoon to assemble and package lentil casserole meal packs for a local food bank.

Decagon Devices, Inc., provided the charitable donation to make the event happen, and Feeding Children Everywhere, a non-profit organization, provided supplies such as bags, sealers and boxes for the event. Many of the volunteers came from the Moscow Idaho Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Volunteers came for one-hour shifts from 12 to 3 p.m. to meet the goal of assembling and packaging 25,000 meals.

“We did meet our goal of 25,000 meals,” said Tamsin Jolley, one of the event organizers.

Each of the bags prepared makes six servings of a lentil casserole and includes seasonings in the bag and instructions printed on the bag. With each bag making six servings, that means more than 4,165 bags were assembled in three hours.

“We had close to 75 people, if not more,” said Jolley. “We had two lines going with 12 or 13 people at any one time.”

The bags were packed into boxes with the Feeding Children Everywhere logo on them, with 48 bags going in each box. By the time the event was concluded, more than 85 boxes had been assembled. The packages stayed local and were sent to the Trinity Baptist Food Bank in Moscow after the Lentil Festival.