Food Packaging
Feeding tens of thousands of children daily is no small undertaking! And it is only made possible through the efforts of our COTN–USA Feeding Program staff, supporters, and volunteers.
Through year-round, food-packaging opportunities and annual events such as our Meal Marathons, Children of the Nations staff works with local schools, organizations, and churches to mobilize groups of people interested in providing food for orphans and destitute children around the world. Volunteers package food that is shipped overseas and served to children through our feeding centers in Africa and the Dominican Republic.
These nutritionally balanced, ready-to-cook meals consist of rice, protein-packed lentils, dehydrated vegetables, spices, and chicken powder. The meal packs, sealed in industrial-grade plastic bags, are waterproof and have a shelf life of seven years. Once in-country, cooks in our feeding centers customize these basic meals with traditional flavors and spices, supplementing with meat when available.
How Does It Work? It’s as easy as 1 – 2 – 3!
- Fundraising – Interested groups raise the funds needed for the food they expect to package. This can be done through advanced fundraising, sponsors, or on a day-of-the-event-donation basis. (Funds needed equates to only 25 cents per meal, which covers the cost of the ingredients, packaging supplies, and overseas shipping.) Depending on the size of your group, we recommend that you raise enough funds to cover the cost of 2,000–10,000 meals ($500–$2,500). If this isn’t possible please contact us anyway; we value any amount of food packaged and we will do our best to work something out.
- Assembly-line Set-up – Utilizing our mobile food-packaging system, our US Feeding Program staff travels to your site, sets up the assembly-line process, provides all the supplies and training, and oversees the entire event.
- Hands-on Volunteers – Event organizers need to recruit enough volunteers to work their event. Our staff will be more than willing to help you calculate how many volunteers you’ll need for your event.
Get your church, civic group, school or community organization involved in feeding children internationally TODAY! It’s great fun and a satisfying team-building event.
(NOTE: We currently have food-packaging capabilities available in Washington state, Orange County, California and the greater Orlando, Florida area. For information on events in other locations please contact info@cotni.org.)
For more information, call Children of the Nations at 360-698-7227 or e-mail:
davespoon@cotni.org for Washington events
fraserratzlaff@cotni.org for Seattle, WA events (and greater King County area)
bethsprinkle@cotni.org for Florida events
sarabooth@cotni.org for California events