By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
More than 51,000 meals in a single day. That's how a group of area volunteers in Great Bend spent their Saturday packaging meals for the Orphan Grain Train, a Nebraska-based organization that ships meals and other goods to 69 countries around the world. Cindy Dayton, the local coordinator who gathered the volunteers and more than $12,000 in donations, explained the project.
'We have a collection center in Larned," she said. "Larned gets donations of clothes, purses, shoes, and medical equipment, all that kind of good stuff. We package it up, and a truck from Norfolk, Neb., comes and picks it up."
Saturday at Heartland Community Church, a total of 278 volunteers worked across five shifts to package 51,505 meals that will be delivered to Malawi, Guatemala, and the Philippines. Dayton wanted to raise $8,000 for the materials to make 50,000 meals. Her volunteers exceeded expectations.
"It was awesome," she said. "I am so proud of Great Bend. We raised $12,665. We only needed $8,000. We're going to be feeding a lot of people with that amount of money."
The food and equipment are supplied by Orphan Grain Train, but the volunteers packaged soy, rice, dehydrated vegetables, and an enriched chicken flavoring into each package weighing between 390 and 400 grams. Each bag contains six meals, and there are 36 bags in a box, which are then hauled away by the OGT semi.
First Christian Church in Great Bend supplied 40 volunteers on four teams. Administrative Assistant Jill Miller said her group filled 53 boxes, or nearly 11,500 meals.
"We asked them for a couple of hours at a time, and it was fun to work together," she said of the volunteers. "It was fast-paced, but we made a big impact."
Dayton plays pickleball and works at the Great Bend Rec Commission. Three pickleball teams and GBRC staff volunteered to pack. They were joined by children of all ages and their families, the Guthrie family, South African students from Barton Community College, and approximately 10 members of the Great Bend High School National Honor Society that even stuck around to clean up and sterilize the equipment after.
