Our March 30th speaker was Michael Bell, Regional Director of Rise Against Hunger. He began with a few announcements and facts. RAH will have a booth at the Rotary International Convention is Houston and he hopes to see us all there. He reported that in 2019 RAH had provided 3.5 million meals, but that Covid-19 had slowed their production considerably. So far in 2022 they have 318,000 meals committed for the year.
The major part of Michael’s presentation was to give account of RAH’s activity to help in Ukraine. On March 24 they wired $80,000 to RAH Italia, through whom they are working for the Ukraine mission. Michael also listed several international food organizations with whom they are partnering and coordinating to reach the refugees in Romania and Poland. They are providing each refugee with 42 meals. Each food package also includes pasta from Evergrain Products, a company that makes pasta with spent barley from breweries. Also in the food packages are powdered milk, tomato sauce, fruit juice and a variety of canned goods. Currently two tons of Evergrain pasta have been sent to refugee centers or are on the way. RAH will continue their provision of food to refugees as long as needed.
After the program Sally Hood reported that in October 2020 NxNE Rotary was the very first Rotary club in this area that stepped up to package RAH meals. Hooray for us!