Question: Quote calls it the Hunger Project but lede calls it the Humanitarian Service Project. Are they the same thing?
An estimated 300 women and girls are expected to gather on March 25 from 3-4:30 p.m. for the Fort Collins Stake Relief Society Humanitarian Service Project and Blood Drive, an event in which volunteers assemble food kits for those less fortunate. Refugees from the Greeley Global Refugee Center will also attend, as will members of the Fort Collins Interfaith Council.
“The Hunger Project is a way to connect, face to face, with those who’ve been displaced and are in need,” says Dyan Thompson, Relief Society event organizer. “In honor of celebrating the Relief Society’s 175th anniversary this March, we honor others by giving relief, and hope, to the Global Refugee Center.”
The volunteers will assemble the meal kits at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 600 E. Swallow Road in Fort Collins. The goal is to assemble 46,000 kits in 90 minutes. A basic meal kit contains dried lentils, white rice, dehydrated vegetables and pink Himalayan salt. The kits will be distributed to agencies in northern Colorado by the national nonprofit organization Feeding Children Everywhere.
Sign-up for the meal-packaging event is already full, but the public can participate in the blood drive at the same location, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sign up at bit.ly/rsblooddrive.
The Relief Society, whose motto is “Charity never faileth,” is a philanthropic and educational women’s organization and an official auxiliary of the LDS Church. It was founded in 1842 in Nauvoo, Illinois, and has approximately 6 million members in over 170 countries and territories. The Relief Society is often referred to as one of the oldest and largest women’s organizations in the world.
The Fort Collins stake (similar to a diocese) of the church consists of nine congregations serving members in Fort Collins, Bellvue, LaPorte, Masonville, Red Feather Lakes, Timnath and Wellington. It includes congregations dedicated to serving Spanish speakers and young, single adults.