CIU Freshmen “Feeding Children Everywhere”

CIU Freshmen “Feeding Children Everywhere”

Women's soccer players Meghan Esquinaldo (left) and Taylor Endicott share a laugh as they wait to seal another bag of lentil casserole.

Women's soccer players Meghan Esquinaldo (left) and Taylor Endicott share a laugh as they wait to seal another bag of lentil casserole.

It was only their second day of orientation, but already CIU freshmen and transfer students were engaging in Christian community service. They joined early-arriving CIU athletes on an “assembly line” set up on the Rams home basketball court, to package 15,000 lentil casseroles for needy people around the corner and around the world.   

The event was organized by the charity “Feeding Children Everywhere” whose mission is “to provide people with the opportunity to make a tangible impact in the lives of not only children, but the people most affected by hunger.”

The approximately 100 students donned green hairnets and were divided into groups of 10 at 10 tables where some dipped the ingredients (lentils, rice, dehydrated vegetables, pink Himalayan salt) into small plastic bags, others weighed the bag, and another duo sealed the bags while the final two students boxed the bags with half destined for a Columbia area food bank and the remainder for other parts of the world.

CIU Dean of Students Rick Swift says this was a good community service project to start the school year because the ministry could be performed on campus and has the potential to help new students get to know one another.

“They start working together and connecting with more than the two or three friends they made right off the bat, and begin to interact with other students and get those friendships going,” Swift said. “And then they’re doing something to serve the community and serve the world.”

See more photos from this community service event on CIU's Flickr page