Webster City residents have taken it upon themselves to help solve the problem of world hunger.
Six years ago, John and Ramona Zahn were introduced to Kids Against Hunger, a humanitarian organization, that tries to reduce the number of hungry children all over the world. For five years, they have been the motivators and organizers for the group in Webster City.
"We went to a district Kiwanis meeting and Kids Against Hunger was the program," Ramona Zahn said. "It was something that we wanted to bring to the Webster City area."
"It has been a lot of work, but the community response has been fantastic," John Zahn said.
With Kids Against Hunger, people come together to package food supplies and ship them worldwide to those that are in need.
"Each package of food contains a soy protein meal base, a measured amount of vitamins and minerals, dried vegetables and rice as a filler," Tom McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin has taken over as leader for the project.
"The program is a small part of Outreach Africa, based in Union," McLaughlin said. "It also collects outdated medical equipment and other items like bedding to ship to Africa," Tom McLaughlin said.
McLaughlin and the Morning Main Street Kiwanis club organizes the events for Kids Against Hunger in the area.
"We send out a community-wide letter asking for donations," he said. "We get a pretty good response. We then ask community groups and service clubs to help out with packaging the food."
Groups like the Rotary Club, student council and 4-H clubs have been quite responsive in helping out.
"To date, Main Street Kiwanis has organized packaging sessions and paid for the packaging and shipping of nearly 160,000 meals to other countries," he said.
The Zahn's have been happy to have been in charge of such a program.
"It's a great program, especially knowing that 97 percent of the donations go into packing and shipping," John Zahn said. "It cost less than 25 cents per meal to get the food shipped."
"We just want to thank the community for all of the support, putting the food together and bringing donations," added Ramona Zahn.
And McLaughlin hopes that people will continue supporting the organization in Webster City.
"It is a very worthwhile project," he said. "If people saw the pictures of the kids in Africa, with their swollen stomachs from starvation, it would be plenty motivation to want to help out with the food dilemma. It is our chance to share our bounty with the rest of the world."
Contact Carrie Olson at lifestyles@freemanjournal.net or call 832-4350.
