Today’s blog is written by Rebekah Baldi, from Jenkins Restorations in Chantilly, VA

The Lasting Impact of Families and Communities Who Volunteer Together

Last weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in my 8^thannual food packing event with Servants With a Heart. It was hosted by Jenkins Restorations at their company headquarters in Chantilly, VA.

It was dark, cold, and windy when I first arrived that morning but that didn’t matter. I was warm with excitement as I looked forward to the events of the day. The set-up team was already in the building quickly moving all the pieces into place to prepare for our first packing shift. After the event was set up, I began welcoming our volunteers and assigning their packing tables. Some of our experienced volunteers take this part very seriously as our event has a tradition of creating a little friendly competition to see what table can pack the most boxes of meals.

While I love the competition, my favorite part of the event is seeing our families and community come together to serve others. I spoke with many new volunteers who had come to the food packing event for their very first time and I was able to share with them SWH’s mission to feed hungry families in Charlotte and around the world. Many were amazed at the international impact this event would have, and the incredible journey this food would take to get to those in need.

Speaking to these volunteers reminds me why volunteering matters so much. And, how the impact goes beyond the families we’re serving. It affects the individual volunteers, their families, and the communities they live within.

Building Community Engagement Through Service

Communities who serve together build stronger internal bonds, have greater impact, and create a culture of purpose. When you volunteer within your community, you can’t help but build new connections. Volunteering brings together people of all demographics, experiences, and backgrounds and places them together with a unified purpose. This collaboration promotes empathy and compassion and helps us to see past individual differences.

The event this past weekend was no different. For my second shift, I packed food at a table with first time packing event volunteers. These volunteers found out about the food packing event through my kids’ school, but I hadn’t previously met them. This opened the door for us to build new connections as we came together to serve a joint mission of feeding the hungry.

The rest of the table were already friends, enjoying an opportunity to strengthen their existing bond by serving together. They worked well as a team, finding roles that each person was comfortable performing. They were patient with each other, not pressuring anyone who may not have been working as quickly as the others. It was about the success of the team, not the individual.

Creating Service Minded Children

Many of our volunteers come to the packing event with their spouses and children in tow. I get asked every year if it is okay to bring young children to volunteer, and the answer is always YES! Volunteering with your kids is great for strengthening family bonds and creating a positive example for them to follow. In fact, volunteering with your children, even those that are very little, can help to instill in them wonderful values and life skills.

I have personally brought my children along to every packing event I’ve been involved with. It’s gotten to the point where they are disappointed if they aren’t available to attend an event. I’ve seen firsthand how volunteering for the food packing events has expanded their service mindedness and inspired them to support other causes they are passionate about. This confidence and compassion for social impact can certainly be related to their exposure of charitable giving and volunteerism at an early age. It’s brought us together as a family, where we can share our passions and drive to serve others.

When People Come Together

This year, we had over 100 volunteers in attendance including students, families, friends and co-workers. It was incredible to see these service-minded individuals working together to feed the hungry. My competitive counterparts even set the all time record by completing 37 boxes of meals at just one table. But more importantly than competition, we helped Servants With a Heart pack its 29 millionth meal and we packed over 69,000 meals together!

None of this would be possible without each and every individual who raised their hand to volunteer their time and give to this important cause. I am so grateful to the Servants With a Heart team who put this event together, and allowed us to play a part in their mission. I know lives are touched by these opportunities, and that includes my own.

Today’s blog is from Kristin Zeppelin, who organized a packing event at Pleasant Knoll Middle School in Fort Mill, SC

What an amazing day bringing our Pleasant Knoll Middle School family together for our First Day of Service!  To pack over 58,000 meals going to children and families in need in Nicaragua and Western North Carolina was priceless and a first for most of our students and staff! Listen to their words…

• I LOVED it! It was great to see the students take ownership and work as a team. I thought servants with a heart did an excellent job also setting up the students for success.

• I absolutely loved this for our students! I loved that we gave some to Western NC as well. I grew up there and know what difficulties they have ahead.

• I loved the Day of Service because it made me feel happy knowing that our hard work fed hungry children and possibly saved lives.

• It was really fun! I think it spread awareness and also allowed our school to really connect as a whole.

• I loved it! It was such a wonderful way to give back and also put other people's situations in our student's minds and hopefully help put their problems into perspective.

• What we did was fun and meaningful for others. I love helping the planet and each other. This would be amazing and fun to do again!

• The Day of Service made me feel good because I was helping others in need.

• I thought it was well run and you could work with a team and use teamwork.

• It was very fun putting in all the ingredients for the kids in Latin and Central America.

• It was very fun and it made me feel happy that I am making a difference.

• I thought it was a cool experience that not many schools do.

• It was a good experience getting to work with the people in the organization and to be able to help people who needed help.

• I really liked scooping the food into the bags. I wish we were able to do more bags, but I really enjoyed it and it was interesting learning about the lives of the kids.

• I think the Day of Service was really fun and productive. It helped students learn more about the world and the importance of helping others in need.

• Kind and Giving

• I really like the day of service. I thought it was very fun, and very helpful for the people that need the food. It helped me feel like I was actually able to help people for once. It really made me and other people happy. I think we should always do this every year. It helped me learn a lot about the people we were going to give the food to.

• Happy.

• I thought it was cool getting to do something for people in Nicaragua. I also thought it was cool because we got to make notes for them which could of made a poor kid happy.

• It was a very fun activity to do and me knowing that I was going to help thousands of kids made it even more fun!!!

Watch a video of their experience here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2aqlwiJdg8

Enjoy this fantastic video of the Sugar Creek Elementary Day of Service last spring. Now that school has started again, let us know if your school is interested in hosting its own packing event!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PuDqlW8Lhk

We are happy to share photos received from our partner in Nicaragua, Convoy of Hope. These servants with a heart meals packed by many schools, churches, and other groups in the greater Charlotte area are being used by a variety of people in Convoy of Hope Program Centers in schools and churches in Nicaragua.

We are grateful for their partnership, and for our awesome volunteers who are making such an impact. 💚💙

It’s tough to read all the labels, but we can see quite a few boxes from Lake Forest Church in Huntersville, NC!

Check out the footage below to see video from our recent packing event at St. Matthew Catholic Church! You can also learn more about the efforts of this church and its impact on Haiti.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/98pubnvec4tuly5hsroj1/St-Matthew-2024.mp4?rlkey=knd7tmvg0ppu6nk6iffxzuhba&e=1&st=q739ed2v&bmus=1&dl=0

https://spectrumlocalnews.com/nc/triangle-sandhills/news/2024/08/26/st-matthew-catholic-church--haiti--missionaries-of-the-poor--food-drive

Today’s blog is from Kristin Johnson, Event Coordinator at St. Mary Magdalene Catholic Church in Simpsonville, SC

It would be tough to find an outreach project that has more benefits and fruits than a meal packing event with Servants With a Heart. With sacrificial giving, where can you give a little or a lot and see it manifested in front of you—elements of a meal that you helped pay for and then helped transform into sustenance for an ailing, hungry world? Lives are changed on a meal packing day, and I am not talking about the recipients of the food! Church member after member commented on the impact this event has had on their lives, their priorities, their finances, their prayers, their inclusion in the life of the church, and their willingness to serve in the future.

Last year was our first year hosting this event and we raised over $30,000, engaged 425 volunteers, and packed 150,000 meals. It was such an overwhelmingly positive event that this year, we raised over $55,000, engaged 750 volunteers, and packed over 200,000 meals. Thank you to the Servants With a Heart core members, sponsors, and volunteers who make this event easy to coordinate, meaningful, and inspiring.

Today’s guest blogger is Jennifer Briggs, who recently served at one of our SWH Impact Days

Several members of our church have had the opportunity to serve with Servants With a Heart multiple times. Each time it has been a wonderful experience. All the volunteers who lead Servants With a Heart have consistently been helpful and kind. The two hour volunteer time down in their space at Furniture Factory Outlet World in Waxhaw is just the perfect amount of time and they have the whole setup structured really well. The video they show about halfway through the volunteering time is a small window into how packing this food helps many who do not have regular meals readily available to them and their families. It is a beautiful snippet of how we are to be the hands and feet of Christ.

It has been sweet to have this as an opportunity to serve as a whole family. As the mother of three boys, I actively look to find organizations that serve our community and world that I can serve side-by-side with my boys. We have had families volunteer with us at Servants With a Heart from our church. Each time everyone walks away knowing they have spent this small time well to serve others around the world and truly have enjoyed themselves. It is a fun experience to work alongside others for a common cause. We are thankful to all those who organize this ministry at Servants With a Heart and we are blessed to have been a small part of it.

Today’s guest blogger is Tessa Burleson, a High School Science Teacher at Union Academy in Monroe, NC

Union Academy 4-H/FFA students were given the opportunity to pack meals for Servants With a Heart in May 2024. This opportunity provided our students with valuable lessons about the agriculture industry as well allowing them to help those in need.

The students learned about the process of procuring the supplies needed for the rice packages, where the commodities were grown and the process of shipping the meal boxes worldwide. Students were able to get hands-on experience packaging meals while giving back to the community through their service.

Our students truly enjoyed learning about the "behind the scenes" work of SWH and were very grateful to know that they were helping others in need!

Today’s blog is written by Carol Claypool, from Sugar Creek Elementary in Fort Mill, SC

Servants with a Heart does not disappoint. We have served with this organization for over eight years through collaboration with a church. We were so touched by their organization that we decided to initiate a first-time food packing in Fort Mill Schools, hosted at Sugar Creek Elementary School! The results- spectacular! Our students and staff repeatedly reported that it is one of our school's most meaningful and significant events. From kindergarten through fifth grade, seven hundred forty-eight students rotated into the educational class and then to the packing station. During the educational station, students learned what life was like in Nicaragua and why the children needed their support. Students then moved into the gymnasium and packed 53,136 meals in a single day! Administration, district leaders, staff, community stakeholders, parents, ROTC students, and our students worked side by side to pack the food that would later be delivered to children in the greater Charlotte area and Nicaragua.The Servants With a Heart volunteer staff was very organized and efficient.Our students continued serving throughout the day, selecting from various other local and global needs.  

This event empowered our students to know they can make a difference locally and globally.

Today’s blog is from Paul Thomas, Campus Pastor at Forest Hill Church in Fort Mill, SC

We always love getting to serve with Servants With a Heart. Personally, my son loves it so much that he ends up serving for 7 hours straight, and there just aren’t that many opportunities for a 10 year old to get to serve like that in such a significant and impactful way.

It has always been a great opportunity for our congregation to serve together, make connections and, like I said above, give an opportunity for parents to serve next to their kids. Multi-generational serving at its best.

This has also been a great opportunity for those that are new to our church to take a first step in connecting with others. We had several new guests come out that we were able to connect with and connect with others.

And that’s just the benefits we receive, which is not the point of the event. We get to serve those in real need around the world with both sustenance for their stomachs, and for their souls as these meals are delivered with the hope of the Gospel of Jesus.

If you’d like to host an event at your church, please contact us! info@servantswithaheart.org