Love it...

In my life, I have been blessed with the opportunity to do lots of things. I've had a lot of crazy, interesting, dangerous, and cool experiences and I don't think I would get rid of a single one. But after all of these, the opportunities I've had to lead kids have, most definitely, been the best. Last weekend was one of those chances.

At 4h30 on Friday I loaded up a bus full of youth from my church and drove them to Asheville. The following morning, 12 kids and 3 adults from all over western NC made 2000 meals in 2.5 hours that will go to feed kids on free and reduced lunch during the weekends. The kids that receive free and reduced lunch in our schools are on this program because they cannot afford lunch money. The more insidious problem is that if they cannot afford food at school during the week, then they will not be able to afford food during the weekend. Therefore, Manna Food Bank in Asheville creates these meals for kids to take home on the weekend so that they do not go from Friday to Monday without eating.

In order to make 2000 meals in 2.5 hours, you would need to prepare 13.3 meals A MINUTE! Which means 1 meal every 4.5 seconds. That means that we were feeding a child that otherwise would have gone hungry every 4.5 seconds!

Although we were doing an incredible thing by providing aid to kids and families throughout Appalachia, I think the impact of our activity was felt among our group just as much as it would eventually be felt by the people receiving the meals. As we worked, these kids were sweating furiously trying to move box after box of meals onto huge pallets. They were organizing themselves without saying a word, in order that the assembly lines could move faster and faster and produce more and more. They were laughing and singing MGMT, and doing all of this for people that they most likely, will never meet.

These kids blew my mind. I wish I could have as much, for lack of a better word, lust for helping others as these kids have. The energy these kids emmitted while trying to get these meals done was viral. It made you want to move faster and it made you want to do more. One of the other adults on the trip noted that when it came time for us to stop working, he was almost shocked because it hadn't felt like we were working at all. It was almost as if time had no bearing because the only thing anyone cared about was packing as many meals as possible for these kids. It was incredible and is definitely an experience I will not soon forget.

Thanks for reading,

- Graham