Midwinter Conference: Kids Against Hunger

Wayne County school children, service groups partner with Michigan Association of School Administrators to spread the word about Kids Against Hunger

More than 100 Wayne County school children will join forces with the Kids Against Hunger Michigan Coalition, the Plymouth Kiwanis and the Michigan Association of School Administrators (MASA) on January 27 to help feed the hungry around the world — and encourage others to do the same.

The food-packaging event will take place at the Renaissance Center’s Detroit Marriott in Downtown Detroit as part of the MASA Midwinter Conference that will attract superintendents and other school district leaders from across Michigan. MASA members will be invited to join the Wayne County students on a food assembly line in the hotel’s Ambassador Ballroom where they will work together to measure, weigh and package the 13.8-ounce bags of nutritious rice-soy casserole mix that can each feed six adults or 12 children.

Middle and high school students from Romulus Community Schools, Garden City Public Schools, Grosse Ile Township Schools and Redford Union Schools, as well as several other Wayne County school districts, will be on hand to help. The goal of the packaging event is for school district leaders across the state to experience first-hand the power Kids Against Hunger has on young people and inspire them to take the program back to their schools and communities.

Kids Against Hunger is a volunteer-driven organization dedicated to providing food to malnourished and starving children throughout the world. The organization partners with local schools, churches and other community groups to organize food-packaging events where as many as 20,000 food bags can be assembled in a three-hour period. Last year alone, Michigan school children packaged more than 1.7 million meals through Kids Against Hunger. One-third of the food from each packaging event goes to local food banks to help those in need in the community, one-third goes to feed the starving in Third World countries, and one-third goes to help those in the U.S. and worldwide struck by natural disaster.

“Our goal with the MASA food-packaging event is to reach out to school districts throughout Michigan with this incredible program,” said MASA member and Northville Public Schools Superintendent Dr. Leonard R. Rezmierski. Over the past four years, Northville elementary and middle school students have come together with students from schools in Detroit and Hamtramck to package food for Kids Against Hunger through a partnership with Bridgepointe (a local non-profit organization that bring together school children from different backgrounds to learn and work), the Plymouth Kiwanis (which provides funding and manpower), and other local community and school groups.

“Our hope is that students come out of the Kids Against Hunger experience feeling good about helping someone else in need and that they are inspired to become involved in community service,” Dr. Rezmierski added.

For more information about Kids Against Hunger, visit www.kidsagainsthungercoalition.com. For more information about the MASA Midwinter Conference visit www.gomasa.org.