Showing finished product: Lehigh Rotary Club member Karen Makowski shows a filled bag of the casserole mix with a list of the ingredients on the back that meet U.S. standards. She said the package will serve six adults after cooked into a casserole. Photos by Mel Toadvine

Dr. Frank Avey, chairman of the project to prepare meals for the hungry in Lehigh and Lee County said the event was a success with some 59,519 meals prepared. That’s enough food to feed more than 350,000 people.

“We packed that much and thanks to the more than 150 volunteers who showed up to help.

Avey said with the publicity spread around Lehigh and the stories in the media on online brought the people out.

“Families from the Rotary Club, which sponsored the event, and families from different businesses in town showed up all morning. We started around 8:30 and ended a few hours later. Some people left and others came in to join us,” Avey said.

The event was held in the fellowship hall of the Christ United Methodist Church on Lee Blvd. and Homestead Rd. The meals were made up and packed in sort of a conveyor type procedure. At least six people manned a table. The first two of the group scooped up soy and vitamin while the next two scooped up vegetables and beans and then the plastic bag moved to the next two who sealed the package so it would not spoil.

Package dinners for the hungry: Here is a group of Lehigh residents working at a "station" filling a plastic bag with a dinner casserole that will feed a family of up to six adults. Those in the beginning of the process put specified ingredients in the bag. It works it way to the end where it is sealed for freshness and then later is packed in boxes to be sent to area food kitchens. Volunteers met Saturday to work for three hours to package the 50,000 plus dinners.

The room was filled with stations and as folks came in to volunteer their service, they were given hair nets for health safety reason and given a quick lesson as how to package the food and then were assigned a station or table.

The food can be made into a casserole and will feed up to six adults, said Karen Makowski, a member of the Rotary Club of Lehigh. Avey said the club has around 33 members and those who could attend were on hand along with their families. Others came from places like Lehigh Regional Medical Center and other companies in town. Jose Morillo, LRMC’s CEO was among them and seemed to enjoy being at the event.

With a hair net over his head, he was not easily recognizable and it was the same with others, but Avey said the hair net prevented any problems with hair falling into the food.

“Everything was done with health in mind,” he said.

Avey said the meals will be distributed to the food banks in Lehigh, including Lehigh Community Services. The project in under the umbrella of Kids Against Hunger of Southwest Florida.

“We’ll send at least 25,000 of these meal packages to Lehigh food pantries and the other 25,000 or so to the Harry Chapin Food Bank in Fort Myers and many of those meals will work themselves back to Lehigh to feed families that are having hard times in this economy,” he said.

Avey said the original concept for the project came from the Rotary Club in Naples.

“I was at a regional conference of Rotary and discovered what they were doing and I brought the idea back to the Rotary Club in Lehigh and all the members were behind it and so we planned it and asked for volunteers to help us.

“The cost for the ingredients was around $7,000, but that packs a lot of bags for this nutritious casserole,” he said.

“Are we going to do it again? We would love to, but we need contributions of $7,000 to pay for the ingredients we pack into the bag.

The amounts of soy, beans, vegetables, and vitamins, were weighed so that the food package weighs 14 ounces.

Other groups that may want to help feed the hungry can contact Steve Popper of Kids Against Hunger of Southwest Florida. by contacting Steve Popper at their website: www.kidsagainsthungerofSWFL.org.