More than 70 members of the University of Sioux Falls cross country and track and field teams demonstrated USF's motto of Culture for Service by packaging meals for the Feed My Starving Children's (FMSC) foundation locally at Faith Lutheran Church last Saturday.
USF student-athletes are regularly involved in community charities, but this year the running program took a different approach. The coaching staff challenged their teams to select a charitable group they would like to serve throughout the year.
"We wanted to find a service project for our team that we could all participate in, and through Adam Weeman we became aware of a great opportunity with FMSC," said director of cross country/track and field Reid Ehrisman. "We have been extremely blessed as a team, and to able to share our blessing was a special experience."
Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God's children hungry in body and spirit. The approach is simple: children and adults hand-pack meals specifically formulated for malnourished children, and they ship the meals to nearly 70 countries around the world.
"It's amazing what we were able to accomplish over the weekend. It's pretty astounding to think that in 45 minutes our team was able to pack enough meals to feed 58 children for one year," added Ehrisman.
FMSC expressed their appreciation for USF's efforts.
"Over two days, we were able to pack over 116,000 meals for severely malnourished children worldwide. This translates into feeding 319 children for one whole year," said FMSC representative Adam Weeman. "We had over 500 volunteers involved in this effort and were extremely blessed to have the USF Track Team take a whole two-hour shift! They were able to pick up the slack from previous groups who had small children or volunteers who were unable to attend. The Feed My Starving Children staff had never seen so many boxes packed in such a short amount of time."
Junior jumper Rony Sieperda and sophomore vaulter/hurdler Katlyn Sawtelle explained how Saturday was not only a great team bonding experience, but a reminder of how blessed we all are.
"We brought our team concept and applied it to the service project for FMSC, which was fun to see," said Sieperda. "We have been blessed so we want to be a blessing to others. It was great to bring the track team together to pack meals."
"We were there to volunteer and to serve, but while it was going on it was obvious that we all were having so much fun throughout the entire process," added Sawtelle. "When you are able to enjoy yourself while volunteering for others, especially those who are depending on you, it makes doing the job so much more fulfilling.
As their selection, Feed My Starving Children will also serve as the benefactor of proceeds from this year's fourth annual Sioux Falls Community 5k and Fun Run put on by the USF cross country team.
