Illini Fighting Hunger (IFH) is a Registered Student Organization (RSO) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a program of the Wesley United Methodist Church and Foundation, as well as a chapter of Universities Fighting World Hunger. IFH was founded out of a desire to address local and international hunger issues by making meal-packaging events more frequent, more accessible, and more effective in Illinois. Some of their accomplishments in 4 years:
23,068 volunteers engaged 2,872,478 meals packaged 4,430 lbs of pasta
39,495 service hours 184,620 lbs of white rice 51,350 lbs of beans
The meals consist of long-grain white rice (a common food staple across cultures and tastes), a blend of vitamins and vegetarian chicken flavoring (to provide flavor and 16 essential vitamins and minerals), dehydrated vegetables, and textured soy protein. The meal’s simplicity masks its complete nutritional value and it can be made for only 11
¢
per serving! Boiled with 6 cups of water, each package provides 6 servings.
Midwest Mission recently had similar meals donated and was able to ship them out through our partner organization, Food for the Poor. They liked this product, so we began to research how we could create these meals. Some of the staff attended a Food Pack event at the University of Illinois and were able to make connections to arrange to bring the event here for Comcast Cares Day. Illini Fighting Hunger has given Midwest Mission a grant for all the equipment needed to be a satellite location. MMDC and IFH are grateful for this divine partnership.
Food for the Poor provides food, housing, emergency relief and much more to those in desperate need. Food for the Poor serves the poorest of the poor in the Caribbean and Latin America. This partnership fulfills a long-time dream of Illini Fighting Hunger - to be able to ship the meals internationally. God is Great!
