MIDDLE SCHOOL 'SENDS HUNGER PACKING'

Share this article with a friend.

January 29, 2024

For information on admission to Notre Dame Prep, please click here. 

Entire middle school community gets together during Catholic Schools Week to help end hunger in our local community and around the world.

Students, teachers and staff from Notre Dame Prep's middle school, in collaboration with Kids Coalition Against Hunger, lined numerous tables today in the Grimaldi Athletic Center and worked in assembly-line fashion to put together packets of rice, soy, dried vegetables, spices, vitamins and flavoring for later distribution to hungry children in need.

With each meal costing only 35 cents to make, the bags are then sealed and carefully packed into boxes. Each bag can feed either six adults or 12 children. The meal was developed about 45 years ago by food scientists at Archer-Daniels, General Mills and Cargill.

According to Lisa D'Souza, who is part of NDP's campus ministry team, more than 1,600 bags were packed today, which is enough to feed approximately 10,000 people.

"Kids Coalition Against Hunger sends the majority of their food bags to local humanitarian organizations, but also service disaster and crisis areas internationally," she added.

The highly nutritious meal, is designed to provide a rich source of easily digestible protein, carbohydrates and vitamins needed by an undernourished child’s body and mind. The food also is acceptable to the broad diversity of ethnic tastes and religious differences around the world and offers all nine of the essential amino acids required for complete nutrition, something that can’t be said about other typical food relief sources such as rice or beans alone. It's also very simple to prepare, requiring only six cups of boiling water to make a complete meal.

Michael Burwell, executive director of Kids Coalition Against Hunger, which is based in Wixom, Mich., asked all in the GAC today to raise their hands before they began packing and say, “These are my hands, and today I will use them to serve.”

Last Saturday, Jan. 25, Notre Dame Prep sophomore Chloe Smith organized a similar food-packing event at Christ the Redeemer parish in Lake Orion.

Kids Coalition Against Hunger is an international coalition of humanitarian organizations whose mission is to reduce child hunger in the U.S. and around the world. More at kidscoalitionagainsthunger.org.

 

 

For information on admission to Notre Dame Prep, please click here.

Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org

About Notre Dame Preparatory School
"At Notre Dame Prep, we inspire our students to become the best versions of themselves. We challenge them through an experience of academic excellence, focused on active, project-based learning. We invite them to explore a world of opportunities beyond the classroom. We guide them as they grow in spirituality within a community strong in its Catholic and Marist identity."

Notre Dame Preparatory School is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame Preparatory School's upper school enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame Prep's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDP is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the National Association of Independent Schools. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School, visit the school’s home page at www.ndprep.org.