Christ Feeds food-packing events provide thousands of meals to hungry abroad

In October, an army of local volunteers waged a battle against hunger. Armed with hairnets and aprons, 1,150 gathered at Christ United Methodist Church in a gym full of tables and worked assembly-line-style, packing meals in bags to be shipped to hungry Zambians.
Working assembly-line style, volunteers packed 200,000 meals for hungry families in Zambia in October through Christ Feeds, a food- packaging ministry at Christ United Methodist Church.

Working assembly-line style, volunteers packed 200,000 meals for hungry families in Zambia in October through Christ Feeds, a food- packaging ministry at Christ United Methodist Church.
Ted Medlin

Ted Medlin
Volunteers as young as 5-year-old Nealy Sankey helped package meals during a Christ Feeds event benefiting hungry people in Zambia.

Volunteers as young as 5-year-old Nealy Sankey helped package meals during a Christ Feeds event benefiting hungry people in Zambia.

Occasionally, a cheer would erupt from a table as its big box was filled with food bags and carted away.

Working quietly among them was Ted Medlin, the Germantown farmer-lawyer whose efforts to create this and events like it led to more than 700,000 meals being shipped to malnourished families in Africa and Haiti. Now, he and others hope to spread meals throughout the city.

Medlin is a corporate lawyer who works in real estate and owns a large farming operation in the southeast Missouri Delta. He rents out his land now, but he once grew rice, cotton, soybeans and more, he said.

Medlin saw deprivation up close as a young man. Four years working in logistics with a steamship company took him to Central and South America, Asia and Liberia in West Africa. "I've observed the eyes and faces of poverty and malnutrition, so I do have a heart for it," he said. In West Africa, "I was shocked by the harsh conditions they dealt with on a daily basis, the thatch-and-mud huts, the open fires over which no food was being prepared."

In 2006, he heard a speech by renowned plant scientist Dr. Norman Borlaug at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis. Borlaug, known as the father of the Green Revolution, bred high-yielding crop varieties that helped avert mass famines. He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2007.

"His message was that food was the moral right of every person living on this Earth," said Medlin. Speaking with him later, "I felt close to him, as if I were talking to my grandfather," he said.

While in Des Moines attending a memorial event for Borlaug after his death in 2009, Medlin met Kathy and Floyd Hammer, founders of Outreach International Inc. a nonprofit food-packaging program based in Union, Iowa, that aids the hungry in Tanzania in East Africa.

In January 2010, Medlin and the couple spoke to a Sunday school class at Christ United Methodist Church and demonstrated the assembly-line packing system. A committee of around 15 or 20 from that class and others formed to show the process to other classes and to organize a Christ Feeds food-packing event. Among them were retired businessman Mike Sheahan and Marilyn Hughes. Hughes, manager of community relations for Hilton Worldwide, became Christ Feeds task force chairwoman.

The following May, a few months after the Haiti earthquake, more than 900 church members, sports teams, school and community groups gathered at the church gym and packed more than 150,000 meals for Haiti.

Working with rice, soy, dried vegetables and vitamin packets, they scooped, bagged and weighed the food and sealed it in bags. The meals, which can be cooked by boiling, are purposely bland to accommodate a variety of cultural tastes, said Hughes.

Many packers donated money to help pay for food and shipping, she said. Each bag could feed six children at about 25 cents a meal. Ten volunteers working one table for an hour could pack about 1,800 meals on average.

The Hammers supplied two 18-wheeler trucks, which brought the 50-pound bags of rice and soy, boxes and equipment to the event and hauled away the packaged food afterward.

On Oct. 2, a second Christ Feeds event packed 200,000 meals to send to a Mercy Ministries International mission it supports in Lusaka, Zambia. Among the volunteers were coach Josh Pastner and a big part of the University of Memphis Tigers men's basketball team.

The Zambian school serves children who have lost one or both parents due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in Africa. Food also went to needy families and the chronically ill in the village.

"The reason most of the kids come to school is because they know they're going to get a meal," said Janet Sisco, formerly from East Memphis and an administrator at the mission who returned recently to Tennessee on furlough.

"It was awesome, such a blessing to be there and see them get the food. The kids were so joyful. They knew they were the recipients. They understand this is a gift from God."

The church also sent 800 school uniforms, 200 pairs of shoes and dental supplies.

But not content with a one-church operation, Medlin arranged a packing demonstration in St. Louis for the Plant Science Center founder, Dr. William H. Danforth, and his board, and later for center staffers.

"When you see how simple it is and how you can be part of preparing somebody's meals, it brings tremendous joy and happiness to you," said Medlin. "You are 'entering' a thatched hut in Africa in a way you could not do otherwise."

On Oct. 15 and 16, the Danforth center, a nonprofit that works to eradicate malnutrition, celebrated World Food Day with a food packing event that drew 1,900 volunteers and sent 355,000 meals to Tanzania.

In December, the center presented Medlin with a replica of the Co