Joint student project to combat hunger

In conjunction with announcing the creation of the joint Foreign Languages Institute, the leaders of Missouri State, Drury, Evangel and Southwest Baptist universities and Ozarks Technical Community College also joined forces for a community service project set to take place later this fall.

The schools will work together to provide more than 1,000 volunteers to package more than 1 million meals for the poor during the Nov. 9–11 Meals a Million event presented at the Springfield Expo Center by Friends Against Hunger. College of the Ozarks also will work with the schools on this project, which MSU interim President Clif Smart said is the result of an email sent to the presidents by Community Foundation of the Ozarks President Brian Fogle several months ago describing The Big Event, a project at his alma mater, the University of Mississippi-Oxford. During that event, Ole Miss students spend a day serving in the community. Smart said Fogle challenged the group to come up with a local community service project, and the schools chose Meals a Million as their first joint community effort.

Volunteers will package specially formulated vegetarian meals – each costing 16 cents – for hungry people in the Ozarks and beyond.

About 184,000 meals will be donated locally, while the remainder will be distributed in Haiti, El Salvador and Mexico.

SBU President Pat Taylor said the Meals a Million project provides a teachable moment.

“This gives our students the opportunity to be involved in a project that’s very worthwhile and hopefully will teach them that they can make a difference,” he said.

Friends Against Hunger Director Karen Wood said her organization is responsible for raising funds to pay for the meals to be assembled, though she noted that student organizations at some of the participating schools will likely be involved in fundraising efforts leading up to the November packaging event.