Imagine donating two hours of your time and helping to feed 40,000 individuals.

Anyone who comes to the Buchanan Firehouse at 10 a.m. this Saturday can be a part of just that.

The Buchanan-Charge United Methodist Youth Fellowship (UMYF) members have been visiting with churches and civic groups for six years now, quoting this scripture:

“Now what use is it, my brothers, for a man to say he has faith if his actions do not correspond with it? Could that sort of faith save anyone’s soul? If a fellow man or woman has no clothes to wear and nothing to eat, and one of you says, ‘Good luck to you, I hope you’ll keep warm and find enough to eat,’ and gives them nothing to meet their physical needs, what on earth is the good of that?” (James 2:14-16 paraphrased)

After the scripture quotation, the youth members challenge their audience to join in a community event for feeding hungry people— many small groups and individual volunteers coming together to do something big, the youth tell them.

This Saturday, June 10 is the sixth annual Stop Hunger Now (SHN) meal-packaging event in Buchanan. In less than two hours, nearly 80 volunteers will gather at the Buchanan Firehouse to package 10,000-12,000 meals for the undernourished globally.

In the past, meals have gone to hungry people in Haiti, students in Honduras, and fellow Americans suffering a tragedy like Hurricane Katrina.

During the event, volunteers work in a kind of assembly line, filling bins with raw ingredients: rice, dehydrated vegetables, vitamin/mineral packets and soy protein. These ingredients are funneled into meal bags at the first “station.”

The meal bags pass to the weighing station, then the sealing station, and finally to the boxing station. There is a job for everyone.

Last year there was a 4-year-old scooping veggies into the big funnel, a senior citizen spooning rice at the weighing station, and many folks in between.

Any community members who wish to help are encouraged to be at the Buchanan Firehouse by 10 a.m. Pre-registration also is available online at http://events.stophungernow.org/buchanan2017 or volunteers can come at 9:45 a.m. to register on site.

For more information, call 254-2696 or email HannahBBug@aol.com.