Lincoln non-profit helps pack over 23,000 meals

ROCA, Neb. (KOLN) - More than 34 million people across the globe are food insecure. Saturday, the Radebaugh family of Roca gathered their friends and family today to spend their Saturday packing meals that will make their way to all corners of the world.

“It just takes a little bit of time and some effort to help others,” Barry Radebaugh. “Karen and I wanted to do a project to just teach our kids to give back to other people and to use their time to serve other people.”

They got all ages of the family out to help.

“My mom is spending her 81st birthday here with us today.” Radebaugh said.

They partnered with Mercy Meals, a nonprofit that is based out of Lincoln. In each of those bags are six servings. They’re filled with rice, soy flakes, veggies and flavoring. All that’s needed is water.

“It’s humbling to be a part of this to serve other people,” Kathy Carter, Mercy Meals of Lincoln. “I’m a nurse practitioner by trade so I’ve always loved to take care of people, but feeding people is how I show my love.”

In just two hours this morning the group packaged just over 14,000 meals, their goal for the day was to hit 20,000 meals. They ended up with over 23,000. The meals are sent to nearly all corners of the globe.

“We’ve shipped a lot to eastern Europe for the Ukrainian refugees,” Carter said. “But we have regular commitments to the Philippines, to India, to South America and Central America. And we’ve partnered with orphan grain train to ship those.”

The Radebaugh family is hoping to get more people in and around Lincoln involved in lending a hand.

“We’d like to do more community projects like school projects if you got athletic teams or youth groups or church groups,” Radebaugh said. “Or just like us, family that wants to come together.”

Copyright 2022 KOLN. All rights reserved.