Elizabethtown College hosted a campus-wide spring Day of Service on Friday, April 1. Partnering with Unto, a local humanitarian organization, more than 232 Blue Jay students, faculty, staff, and alumni helped pack 46,000 rice and lentil meals that will be sent to refugee families experiencing food insecurity.
Watch a video recap of the event.
Four one-hour and fifteen-minute sessions were held in Thompson Gym to pack the meals, while more than 30 packs of remote service work were provided for those that could not participate in person.
On average, each person’s involvement provided over 198 meals from a 75-minute packing session. Each box of 144 meals will feed a family of five a meal a day for a month, which means roughly 68 families will be provided with one meal a day for a month because of the work done by the campus community.
Unto®, the humanitarian ministry of the Campus Crusade for Christ, coordinated the packaging of meals for refugee families in need around the world. As a Christian organization, Unto® ships humanitarian aid resources to its partners in some of the toughest places on earth, including over 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Javita Thompson, Director of the Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE), expressed what this event means to her and the Blue Jay community.
“It is so rewarding to assist with programs that are meaningful and beneficial to community partners,” Thompson said. “Our Educate for Service motto is an opportunity for the CCCE to provide collaborative and meaningful connection service for our students, faculty, staff, and the community.”
In addition to the CCCE, the Day of Service was sponsored by the Office of the Chaplain and Religious Life, the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Belonging (DEB), and the Center for Global Understanding and Peacemaking.