WeHelpFMSC – Haiti

Get ready to have a Boot-Scootin’ good time!

I want to invite everyone to the Hoe Down for Haiti on Saturday, April 3rd, from 5-10pm at the Hawley Community Center. This will be a great opportunity for all of us to come together and meet the other teams that will be participating in our MobilePack Event.

This event could be our biggest fundraiser yet, but we need everyone’s help to make it a huge success.

 Invite your family and friends to join us for a fun-filled evening. For a minimum donation of only $10 (and just $5 for kids 10 and under) you’ll get a “world famous” Jaycee Pork Sandwich, with chips, and pickles, with pop and beer on tap. Plus there will be music and dancing. What a great deal!

 So come on out, have a great time, and help us support the MobilePack!

The “Hawley, Lakes & Prairies Area Helping Haiti” committee would like to take this opportunity to share with you some of the exciting things that have been happening in our campaign to bring the Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) MobilePack™ unit to Hawley.  

The campaign originated on the 14th of January, after meeting with the Hawley Ministerium and getting their approval. Our goal was to raise $46,000.00, which would provide over 270,000 meals to the children of Haiti.  The FMSC food packets, which contain rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and 20 vitamins and minerals, have been specially formulated so that just one cup per day will sustain and help a child thrive. 
 
In the past 8 weeks, since the proposal of helping Haiti was introduced to our community, we have met every Thursday at 1:00 pm in the upper room of the Community Center.  We have invited everyone who is interested to come and be a part of the planning of this community-wide event.  

Teams (consisting of 15 to 20 volunteers) have been formed, and each team has been challenged to generate $800.00, to cover the cost of the food they will be packing. The teams will then come together to work a two-hour shift on either April 30^th or May 1^st. To date there are 50 teams. 

 On Friday, April 30^th, the students of Hawley Public Schools will take part in the MobilePack Event, thanks to the enthusiastic support of principals Mike Martin and Wayne Lepard. Apparently the students are fired-up too: They were given M&M candy tubes in February with the request that they fill the tubes with as many quarters as possible and return them to the school office. The kids have turned in over $4,600!

There have been several successful fundraising events, and thanks to the help and generosity of so many people, we have already raised just over $42,000 for the MobilePack Event. It has been so rewarding to see our community come together for this great cause. Ann Clute has put together an impressive poster that shows our progress, and it is on display at the Whistle Stop Café in downtown Hawley.

 We have also had good coverage by the media:  WDAY (Channel 6) has televised three of our events, and Julie Gerhardson was interviewed by Verna Olson for the local cable channel 3. Also, Jim Fawbush wrote a story in the January 25th issue of the Hawley Herald and Mark Ness has given our campaign   regular coverage, including stories, pictures and advertising. Herb Ludwig helped us put together an event website and you can visit it at www.WeHelpFMSC.org.

 The FMSC MobilePack will provide a deeply meaningful service opportunity for our community, as it engages our hearts, hands, and minds for Christ. The FMSC approach offers a powerful opportunity for all of us to share the love of Christ and to see firsthand the difference we can make in response to Christ’s call to feed His starving children.

 We invite you to be a part of this experience.

As part of our fundraising efforts, on Feb. 19th we handed out around 800 M&M candy tubes to the students of  Hawley Elementary and High School. The only string attached was this: Enjoy the treat, and then fill the empty container with as many quarters as you can, and bring the tube back to the school office. I have to admit, we didn’t really know what to expect.

Well, the students rose to the challenge, and so far, they have turned in over $4000.00! We were blown away! It just goes to show you how great our kids are, and how much they really care about helping others.

Go Hawley Students!!! You’re Awesome!

Dear friends and family, 

 I wanted to tell all of you what we have been up to lately:

 It all started when Marv and I went to Zimbabwe in November. While there, we had the opportunity to visit two orphanages, and a school with 900 students. All of the children at these places were being fed by Feed My Starving Children (FMSC). We came back with the idea to fill a container of FMSC food packets to send to Zimbabwe. As you may be aware, FMSC is an organization based in Minneapolis that feeds starving children in over 60 countries around the world. They also offer MobilePack™ events around the country. Here is their website:  www.fmsc.org  Marv and I have been involved with FMSC for the last 5 years, traveling to Minneapolis to pack meals and sending money.

 When we arrived home from our trip to Zimbabwe, I got busy planning how to bring a FMSC MobilePack unit to Hawley. Just after Christmas, we were ready to get started on the packing event, when the earthquake struck Haiti. It became obvious to us that now, more than ever, we needed to respond to the desperate cries for help. On the 14th of January we had our first meeting with the ministerium in Hawley, and with their approval, we got started.

 We placed a notice in the local newspaper.  It was called “Hawley Area Helping Haiti” and gave the location and time of this planning meeting. Immediately, we found the library was too small.  Since that first meeting we have used the upstairs room in the Community Bldg. We meet every Thursday at 1:00 for one hour and a lot has happened in that “upper room”.

Our goal was to raise $46,000.00 and recruit over 800 volunteers in order to bring the FMSC MobilePack unit to Hawley.  We put the emphasis on Haiti after the earthquake hit there on January 12th. Our hearts were hurting for the people of Haiti and everyone wanted to help. The response to this event has been overwhelming:

•  We asked for volunteers to form teams of 15 to 20 people and each team to raise $800.00. To date we have 44 teams, and teams are still forming.
•  We bought 900 tubes of mini M&M’s, passed them out to all the school students with this simple request: “Eat the candy, and the fill the empty tubes with as many quarters as you can, and bring it back to the school.” To date, just over $4000.00 has come in. At Hawley Lutheran Church, we handed out empty prescription bottles, labeled for FMSC and that has brought in hundreds of dollars, as well.
•  A big event of “Haircuts for Haiti” at the Shear Shop last Sunday raised $3,300.00
• A third grade class gave $800.00 for a cookie sale and another $500 for a “Shiver-in-Shorts Day”.    
• A good friend of ours, who is a local farmer, gave a good donation and then went around to some of the organizations he does business with, challenging them to “Match Me or Beat Me”. What a challenge, they had to pay up! 

 These are just some of the things that come to mind along with some wonderful donations from the community and businesses.

 On March 1, we sent our first payment to FMSC of $25,000.  They asked for 1/3 of the $46,000.00 each month, so we surpassed our goal on that payment.  Coming events include a huge community-wide bazaar on Saturday March 13^th, a Community Sing with a soup supper on April 18th and the “Hoe-Down for Haiti” on April 3rd. 

The Hoe-Down will be a huge community party with lunch, beverages and entertainment.  This event is being hosted by many area businesses along with the Jaycees.  They will sell tickets at the door. 

 In the mean-time we are doing presentations in churches, community meetings and schools, spreading the word and inviting everyone to join us in this incredible event. We have 5 High School students also helping us give presentations. This week we are scheduled at Lysne Lutheran, Hegland Lutheran, Eksjo at their Lenten Service, and Rollag Lutheran.

The efforts of so many will culminate with the MobilePack Event on Friday, April 30^th and Saturday, May 1^st at the Hawley High School Gym. On Friday, every student in our school will participate in packing food. Friday and Saturday will have 2 hr shifts where all of the volunteers will come and pack. Each shift will have approximately 200 people, so the School will be a busy place!

 This piece will be my first blog on our website: http://www.wehelpfmsc.org/?p=186 ,

It is being sent to friends and relatives across the country and probably beyond.

Audrey