The public was able to learn more about the fifth Feed My Starving Children MobilePack event in Warsaw and how to get involved during a kickoff event at the Warsaw Community Public Library Tuesday. “The funding is what we really need help with,” said Kevin Stone, Warsaw team member. The cost is 24 cents per MobilePack meal, with a goal of packing 1 million MobilePack meals. A total of $240,000 is needed to obtain that goal. Kevin then walked people through how to set up teams in order to start fundraising on the FMSC website. People can create fundraising teams at www.fmsc.org on their computer. Kevin said to hit the donate button and say you want to be a fundraiser, and then the person is able to create a team. If someone has login information from past events, that information can be used. If a person or team has not done the event before, they will need to create an account. Once the account is created, each team will get its own url so they can keep track of the money they raise. “It’s a very nice website to get the message out,” he said. People are able to go through the same process on cell phones by scanning a QR code that was provided in documents handed out at the kickoff event. Each person that attended the kickoff event was given a packet of information. Vicky Decker, from the Warsaw MobilePack steering committee, went over everything that was in the packet. A fact sheet in the packet states that in 2018, 1,135,296 meals were packed, which fed 3,110 children for a year. The meals were shipped to Haiti and Uganda. Also in the packet, information on sponsorship levels was included. There are six sponsorship levels with different benefits for that sponsorship. The highest level is called Hunger IMPACT Award, which is for a $25,000 sponsorship, which would provide for 100,000 meals and would feed 284 children for a year. The benefits would include a corporate banner featured at the event, recognition on an event video and the company logo featured on the event website and social media site. The design of the official T-shirt for the event was shown at Tuesday’s kickoff. Part of the money from the sale of T-shirts goes toward the money needed to be raised. Megan Stone, MobilePack event chair, stated the hope is the organization will hit the 5 million meal mark at October’s event. The MobilePack event will be Oct. 14-16 at Warsaw Community High School Tiger Recreation and Activity Center. Kevin said the schedule for packing hasn’t been figured out yet, but the thought is that the high school students would pack during the day, and the earliest times that adult packers could get into the school would be about 3:30 p.m. Carrie Wiggins, FMSC development advisor, said the shifts will be two hours long and there will be possibly four shifts in a day. For more information, e-mail Kevin at kt_stone@yahoo.com.
