Hillcrest High combines with Rise Against Hunger to send 25,000 meal packets
Hillcrest High students have done their part to help feed the world.
Students in the school's Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy organized and funded an effort on April 24 that sent 25,000 meal packets out to those in need of food.
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The school is participating for the second year with the Rise Against Hunger organization, which will distribute the meal packages to groups dealing with the depravations of war, poverty or disaster situations. The Rise Against Hunger website says the group distributed almost 79 million meals in 2023.
"It means so much. This is the first time I’ve experienced something at this scale. We usually only do projects like this to benefit the local communities, but in this, it really goes to other parts of the world, to people we may never even meet. It means a lot that we get to help people that truly need us," Hillcrest senior Marlene Miranda said.
Another Hillcrest senior, Lorelai Mesecher, said the event is possible because of the field day hosted by members of the Leadership Academy. The event draws students from Hillcrest's high school and middle school and raises the $10,000 necessary to purchase the food for the drive.
"This is our impact project. We usually do a big project at the end of the year after field day. The money we raise from field day goes toward creating these meals. Morgan Taylor and Woods Hobbs came up with the idea last year. We just went above and beyond to raise $10,000 and we decided. 'Why not do it again this year?' " Mesecher said.
John Corso, the Rise Against Hunger representative, said the meals often go into schools in countries where food insecurity is a real threat. Each bag packaged at Hillcrest contains enough for six meals and contains dehydrated soy for protein, rice for a carbohydrate, dried vegetables and a vitamin packet.
"Most of these will go to school programs somewhere around the world where this could be their only meal of the day. It’s probably more nutritious than most things we are eating today," Corso said.
The Chick-fil-A Leadership Academy requires students to participate in at least three service projects per school year, according to Assistant Principal Cheryl Morrow. The Rise Against Hunger is the final project of the year.
"William Boulware, the owner at Chick-Fil-A South sponsors us. We have been doing the Leader Academy now for six years," Morrow said. "Our students in the Leadership Academy can choose to do anything they want. For the past six years, they have chose to do a field day and we have benefactors mostly in the local community that we help. The last two years we have done the Rise Against Hunger."
The other two service projects this year were the Million Book Giveaway, in which each student in one of the Tuscaloosa County School System's elementary schools was given five books by the Leadership Academy students. The other was a December Do Good project where students visited local nursing homes and played bingo with residents.
Reach Gary Cosby Jr. at gary.cosby@tuscaloosanews.com.
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Hillcrest High students package 25,000 meals for Rise Against Hunger
