Volunteers in Wilmington hand pack more than 55,000 meals ahead of Thanksgiving holiday

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) – Hundreds of volunteers showed up for a food packaging event over the weekend in Wilmington.

Two-hundred-sixty-one boxes, containing 56,000 meals will be headed to Haiti in the next few days.

Hope Changes Everything Founder Renee Hunter with Masonboro Baptist Church started the program to give back to those less fortunate.

“The meals that we pack today (Saturday) will be going to a little town village called Grand Goave, Haiti,” she said. “And we will use it there to feed children who are in school.”

The non-profit started in 2013 and was created to provide education, uniforms, supplies, and nutritious meals to kids trying to pursue an education.

“I’ve been a teacher my whole life,” she said. “So, I knew we could not educate children who were not nourished. So began to look for ways to feed them and this door opened to us.”

Hundreds of volunteers worked together on Saturday to hand pack rice-based meals, formulated with vitamins, plant-based proteins, and dehydrated veggies, each package provides 75 percent of a child’s daily needs.

Coastal Christian High School students Bradley Arnette and Maggie Carter, working together to help another community in need make them feel good.

“I came out here to serve our community and help the people who need help,” said Arnette. “It makes me happy.”

“I think something just as simple as this, coming here just for a few hours to help package some food makes a huge difference,” said Carter. “So anything anyone can do helps a lot.”

Volunteers of every age were at the packing event including Hunter’s mom Constance “Connie” Norris who did her part to help.

“I just think this is a wonderful thing and my heart breaks for the children that are hungry,” Norris. “It makes me so angry when people complain, we have nothing to complain about we are blessed beyond being blessed.”

Hunter said her organization saw a need and then filled it.

“We visited the schools where we had sponsored children,” she said. “Those children did not have any food to eat and they had no clean water,” said Norris.

Hope Changes Everything vowed to continue to help for years to come.

Those who’d like to sponsor a child or donate time or money for food can find information here.