MANCHESTER, Mo. — Hundreds of St. Louisans spent their Saturday packing thousands of meals for hungry kids around the world.
It's the 18th year that "Feed the Need STL" has packed food for "Feed My Starving Children," a nonprofit that's dedicated to addressing the issue of world hunger.
That's why St. Louisans stepped up to the challenge. According to "Feed the Need STL," 5,200 volunteers packed 1.2 million meals throughout the 5-day event.
Since Wednesday, the Greensfelder Recreation Complex in Manchester has been full, including Nerinx Hall High School students Eva Juric and Cate Moriarty.
"There are one hundred Nerinx community members here and this is our centennial year, this is a part of our 100th birthday. We just really wanted to give back," Moriarty said.
"Just being here with this huge community and just all helping out for a really, really great cause, it's been special," Juric said.
Carrie Wiggins, with "Feed My Starving Children," described food as the "foundation for all other progress."
"Once people are able to know where the next meal, they're going to give their child is coming from, then they can focus on other things like health care, and education and agriculture and entrepreneurship," she said.
According to Wiggins, food insecurity is at an all-time high across the world and recent events have exasperated the problem.
"Everything that happened over the years during the pandemic created large amounts of food shortages, and the amount of conflict that we're seeing in the world today, we're needing to do more and more to get food into conflict zones, because there's just not enough food available for people," she said.
The food that was packed, just on Saturday morning, will help feed 362 kids for an entire year, according to organizers.
"We hit a huge milestone this week and have packed the 10 millionth meal that this community has worked with this event over those 18 years," Wiggins said.
Among the 400 volunteers on Saturday was a group of Girl Scout Brownies, who helped scoop and pack the food that's sent to a network of humanitarian organizations around the world.
"It's really nice because down deep in your heart you know that you're doing something really good," one Girl Scout Brownies member said.
A good deed that everyone inside the rec complex knows, just begins to scratch the surface.
"We'll never be able to even the score completely, but just helping out as much as we can is just so important. Everything you do to serve your community is important," Juric said.
One of the main sponsors of the events was Tacos 4 Life, which is a restaurant that raises meals for children in need with every meal purchased.
Sunday, April 14, is the last day for the week-long food packing event. Volunteers will be back at Queeny Park from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
You can donate to "Feed My Starving Children" here.