For this month’s event of TomTom Tries, many Tom Tom staffers traveled to Feed My Starving Children in Libertyville, IL. For many of us, this was not our first time there, but for others, it was the first time they had experienced anything like it.
Right away we got started with putting on our hairnets and headed to the assembling room. We got to package a mixture of vitamins, vegetables, soy and rice. Personally, my favorite part was getting to shout out when we finished packaging enough meals to fill an entire box. Not only was this a fun volunteer event, but getting to experience working with classmates outside of school was entertaining.
Many of us sang along to the music the workers were playing and learned a great deal about how fortunate we are that we have access to food. The kids in Haiti often are left wondering where their next meal will come from, so various Feed My Starving Children locations work together with many volunteers to end that longing for hunger. It is a completely donations-based organization and can provide meals for children due to volunteers coming out to give up their time to care for others.
Junior RJ Deguzman also thought the experience was gratifying. He liked how the people working at Feed My Starving Children deeply explained the message of Feed My Starving Children and how hunger kills a child in struggling countries every four seconds each day. Deguzman thinks it is touching for the volunteers to experience this because they get to help children in need.
“Like they said, we will never know these kids, but they will have one more meal than what they had before [because of all of the volunteers],” Deguzman said.
Even though hunger is a serious world issue, the staffers were able to find humor in volunteering. Deguzman found it funny when another staffer, Senior Ben Clausen, did not properly place the food bag underneath the funnel for the food to be poured in. When other staffers started to dump the food into the bag, the soy and rice spilled all over and into the food-catching tray then had to later be cleaned up.
Deguzman is very grateful for this trip to Feed My Starving Children and has a newfound enlightenment into how fortunate he truly is. He encourages others to go and help out because it truly does make one feel good afterward. Just knowing that he was able to positively impact someone’s life would make him want to go again as well.
“Don’t take what you have for granted because not everyone has the same opportunities,” Deguzman said.
There were around 90 people there at our slot of time to help make meals for a multitude of children who are starving in Haiti with a goal of packing about 80 boxes filled with meals. Fortunately, we put together 103 boxes, exceeding our expectations. This consisted of 22,248 meals for the children in need, which would normally cost around 6,451.92 dollars. So in total, about 60 kids would be fed a daily meal for an entire year.
The Tom Tom staffers are extremely grateful for this opportunity to help those in need and are appreciative of all they have in life.
