Orphan Grain Train’s first Kansas Mercy Meal project was a success, and more, notes Great Bend organizer Cindy Warner Dayton. The Orphan Grain Train semi-trailer was filled to capacity when it left the Larned OGT collection center, bound for home base in Norfolk, Neb. on Monday.
On board were boxes of Mercy Meals packed Saturday at Heartland Community Church in Great Bend, with assistance from 278 Barton County volunteers, in the latest packing project since its inception by the Christian mission organization in 2021.
The Great Bend operation netted 8,505 meal bags on Saturday, as teams of volunteers prepared them from bulk materials supplied by the Norfolk head office. With six meals per bag, that translates to 51,030 meals, destined for Guatemala, the Philippines and Malawi, Africa, Dayton noted.
There could have been more, Dayton said, but the volunteer group was forced to wrap things up at about 3 p.m. Saturday when it ran out of the chicken flavoring that also provided essential vitamins for the meal. The bags also contain rice, soy and dehydrated vegetables.
Each bag was loaded into cardboard boxes at 36 bags per box. The semi was then roaded back to Larned to pick up clothing and other items bound for Norfolk on Monday.
Funding collected for the effort exceeded $12,665 from local donors, Dayton said.
Dayton recruited the Heartland Church Fellowship Hall as a reasonable space for the operation. “We wouldn’t have had the room anywhere in Larned, and everybody just really stepped up for this,” she said.
“I’m just so proud of Great Bend and Barton County,” said Dayton, who began recruiting for the project around the first of the year. Her recruiting efforts took her to several church groups during Lenten Luncheons, as well as local high schools and other group gatherings. Great Bend’s Cathy Anderson was recruited after Dayton’s talk at a pickleball tournament and Anderson not only showed up for the Friday unloading, but was on the floor all day Saturday. First Christian Church secretary Jill Miller also received Dayton’s special mention for her work in gathering volunteers. “Those two ladies were crucial in the recruitment effort,” she said.
The event went off so well that Dayton and the Larned OGT are looking to making the effort an annual event. “It just seemed like March was the perfect time to do this,” she said.
The weekend effort brings OGT’s organization total to 8,077.000 meals packed by 43,908 volunteers. With 28 branch and collection centers scattered throughout the Midwest, OGT has provided disaster aid to 38 states as well as humanitarian aid to 69 countries around the world. Its mission also includes local food pantries, homeless missions, domestic shelters, soup kitchens, Christian camps and Mission churches.
