Missouri State’s Living-Learning Communities took 54 students to the Friends Against Hunger Meals a Million Packathon on Friday, September 11, 2015.

Friends Against Hunger is a nonprofit organization focused on feeding people who are hungry in the United States and around the world. In their 4th annual, three-day Meals a Million Pack-a-thon the goal was to pack 1,000,000 meals for hungry people in the U.S. and around the world. During the 1 1/2 hours LLC students were participating in the event, they were able to pack more than 15,000 meals!  As a result of the experience, LLC students shared with us:

“We connected with the community engagement mission of the University. I am so happy I helped. Thank you for this life-changing event!”

“This teaches us that we are the change we want to see in the world and I believe it also helped us by hitting on each of the 3 pillars. It was putting the Public Affairs into action.”

“It showed me how easy it is to get involved.”

More than 4,000 volunteers assisted Friends Against Hunger to meet and exceed their 1 million meal challenge and assembled more than 1,006,344 meals.  About two-thirds of those meals will be shipped out of the US to support others and the remaining one-third of meals will be provided to people in the state of Missouri in need of food and nourishment.

We are excited to share with our LLC students the opportunity to put the Universities’ Public Affairs Mission into action.  Our students are great participants and have provided so much to our University and Springfield community.  We are proud of them and their work and look forward to many more service events, including a clothing and supply drive to support foster children, playing ghouls and goblins at a local community center haunted house, and engaging with Springfield’s homeless youth population.  Stay tuned for additional updates and highlights from the Living-Learning Communities!