Sailors from Training Support Center (TSC) Great Lakes joined together with other volunteers at Feed My Starving Children facility in Libertyville to pack meals for those in need around the world May 25.

More than 7 TSC Sailors and civilian worker assisted helpers from the surrounding community packed more than 78 boxes containing 16,848 meals.

To make the meals the volunteers combined soy, rice, vitamins and vegetables into plastic bags and then sealed them. The meals are one of three separate meal plans Feed My Starving Children prepares and distributes to 70 countries worldwide.

"It is really easy to volunteer with the organization," said Aviation Electronics Technician 1st Class Megan Hnatuk, the community outreach coordinator and Navy Military Training Instructor (NMTI). "You can search for openings on line and register for a packing date on line and then just show up on that date. They have packing times 6 days a week from 0930 to 2130."

Sailors volunteered for this opportunity because, Hnatuk said, throughout our deployments we all have seen first-hand the effects on children from hunger.

"I know there are starving children in the world," She said. "When I was deployed to Djibouti, Africa in 2007 children begged for money for food, and we learned that the adults chew Khat just to curb their appetite because of the lack of food."

Sailors from TSC have been volunteering with Feed My Starving Children almost since this site opened in late 2012 To be a volunteer at Feed My Starving Children the minimum age is 5 and no max age. They even have a sit down job labeling bags for people who cannot stand for a long time. Some of the countries food is sent to is Cuba, Haiti, Philippines, Dominican Republic, etc.

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