More than 1,800 students, staff and parents from southern Minnesota Lutheran schools, donning hairnets and a caring heart, stood side by side inside Bethany Lutheran College, Martin Luther College and Rochester Central Lutheran School for a meal-packaging blitz during Lutheran School Week March 2 to 8.

The schools temporarily morphed into assembly lines as volunteers packed 420,987 nutritionally rich meals consisting of rice, soy, vitamins, and dehydrated vegetables with Minnesota-based nonprofit, Kids Against Hunger. Each volunteer committed to a two-hour shift helping scoop ingredients, weigh packages, seal bags and box the rice-based meals.

“It was an awesome week,” said Lutheran Community Services Specialist Teresa Liesenfeld. “Between the three sites, we had almost 2,000 people packaging food. It’s amazing to think about the impact their time will have on starving kids half a world away.”

Thrivent Financial and southern Minnesota Lutheran schools joined with Kids Against Hunger to reduce the number of starving children throughout the world and to become better informed about the problem of global hunger and how to respond to the need.