International

This write up is from Matt Dees of Durham Magazine via Rotarian Sheridan Townsend, who coordinated the club's participation in the event.  Be sure to click on the slideshow which will take you to the magazine's site. Some great pictures including one of our own Past President Newman Aguiar with a huge smile and Rob Everett and his daughter Cate wearing funny hats and banging a gong.  Thanks Matt for all the help. Great write up and great pics too!

The gong went off, and cheers went up among the hundreds crowing around tables covered with giant tubs of rice, dehydrated vegetables and other food stuffs.

The gong sounded every time 1,000 meals had been packaged and ready to be shipped to needy people both domestically and around the world. Every time it reverberated, the group of volunteers got one step closer to the goal of packaging 80,000 meals by day's end, contributing to the Million Meals Project, backed by Stop Hunger Now, an international hunger relief organization.

The event, organized by representatives of Duke, NCCU and the Rotary Club of  Durham, has become an MLK Day tradition. Last year, more than 64,500 meals were packaged.

Jesse Huddleston of the Duke-Durham Neighborhood Partnership said they started the day anticipating 500 volunteers but said by mid-morning they were expecting closer to 1,000 to show up by day's end. The Freeman Center for Jewish Life at Duke was absolutely jammed with people, some of whom were left waiting for a work station to open up.

Rebekah Johnston, representing the Benjamin N. Duke Scholarship Program, said it was heartening to think about the good the meals would do. She said many of the meals will go to schools in developing countries, where sometimes the food provided at school is the only meal some students will eat. "This is supporting worldwide education, in a way, by helping them to concentrate, focus and just stay healthy," Rebekah said.

Check out our slideshow to see more, and congratulations to everyone who participated in this worthy effort!