Here's what I saw on the north side of the old Cub Food store from a ladder at about 2:30. Click to enlarge any image.
The old Cub Food building was packed with volunteers early Sunday afternoon.
View of the south side of the Cub Food store.
The Haitian flag hung near line number 50.
Enough rice and other ingredients had been packed Saturday to provide 440,000 meals to those living in Haiti.
There were fifty packing stations set up.
They seemed all full at 1:30.
But there were not enough volunteers for the rest of the day to meet the million meal goal.
"Thumbs up," this boy signals.
Young volunteers enjoyed the packing end of the line. Not putting them in the box though. That was too high for them.
How vigorous were the young folks with their packet pounding? Notice that the camera was not fast enough to stop the action of his hand.
They enjoyed the pounding the meal flat so it would fit into the box.
The contents of the meal was bunched at the bottom of the bag after it was sealed. Pounding it not only flattened the contents, it tested the strength of the seal.
Flattening the meals was a job any kid could do.
There were no calls for "Clean up on Aisle 15," but some of the ingredients were spilled on the floor.
Accidents did happen. Bags did break.
This little girl seemed to be writing a message to the children of Haiti.
She also put the boxes over her head once in a while. Not to matter. She had on a hair net.
Here's a mother and son team. The Mom sealed the plastic packets and the son flattened them.
This proves there was a job for any age group.
Bill Moll, an usher at the First United Methodist Church of Crystal Lake, was packing the boxes next to my line.
I recognized Bill Moll packing boxes next to my station number 50.
Volunteers at the front of the line mesured amounts of variouis ingredients and funneled them into bags.
One of the advantages of being at the end of the production line was that one did not have to wear plastic gloves.
It wasn't just kids who caught me taking photos.
The arms and hands of Christ were all over the room.
Another "front of the line."
There were so many lines.
The weigh stations took a lot of patience.
In the middle of each line were stations where people weighed the bags and either took some of the contents out or added enough to make the desired weight.
From 5-7 Crystal Lake City Councilman Brett Hopkins and I were the bag sealers at our table.
Next on the line were us bag sealers.
The cymbal that was hit every 10,000 meals.
Every time another 10,000 meals were packed someone banged on a cymbal and announced the new total.
If you want to know what the ingredients are, you'll have to take a look at yesterday's article. One bag was placed on each colored square. When all were filled, they were loaded into a box and sealed with tape.
Just in case you didn’t read yesterday’s article, here’s what the bags looked like before they were flattened.
Among the tables still making meals when I left at 7 were two with people identifying themselves as members of the Mormon Church.
Sunday by 7 PM upwards of 780,000 were ready for the truck.
An announcement was made was made that 16 million means had already been shipped to Haiti.
The joint project in McHenry County between the Salvation Army and Numana was all over but the clean-up.
Cal: Those are my kids in that last picture. Great picture. My daughter was a real driver in us being there both Saturday and pulling a double shift on Sunday, she refused to give up. The final tally was 783,996 boxes. By the way, the correct spelling is “Mormon”, although the official title is The Church of Jesus Christ of Later-Day Saints and you can see more volunteers wearing the “Mormon Helping Hands” vests in the background, too. Hard working and good young men who stayed to help clean up.
I’ll make the correction. Having lived in Salt Lake City for three years, I ought to know better.
I would like to volunteer for the next Haiti food drive. when and where will it be.?