Thousands of children affected by the Haiti earthquake will get hot, nourishing meals, thanks to the efforts of 400 pairs of hands working over five months to package the food.

On Friday, June 4, Kids Against Hunger of Central Texas a non-profit international organization that packages and ships nutritionally balanced food to impoverished areas, shipped out 196,000 meals to be given to Haitian orphanages and schools.

"We have had more than 400 volunteers from Temple and Belton churches, civic groups and the Temple police and fire departments packaging the food," said Lamar Eidson, one of the coordinators.  "These volunteers ranged in age from 7 to 101."

The schools and orphanages are operated by Hope for the Hungry of Belton, a separate non-profit organization that is also shipping other supplies with the food.  Dan Kirkley is president of Hope for the Hungry.

"Seven thousand meals were airlifted to Port-au-Prince soon after the earthquake there.  Now that the docks have been repaired, the remaining 189,000 are being loaded in a container and will depart for Port-au-Prince next week," Eidson added.

Local volunteers poured measured cups of dehydrated food ingredients into bags and boxed them onto 26 pallets.  The foods will be reconstituted with water and cooked when they reachtheir destination.  The local effort is being coordinated by Eidson, his wife Judy, and Jerry and Madiene Gibson.

Last year, the 73 chapters of Kids Against Hunger shipped 48 million meals to hungry children in 42 different countries.