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SLEEPY EYE - In an effort against world hunger, hundreds of high school and grade school students packed tens of thousands of soy-rice casserole meals for the international Kids Against Hunger program Sunday at the Orchid Inn.

Students from Sleepy Eye St. Mary's and Sleepy Eye Public School began packaging food at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Aided by adults, different groups of students worked two 135-minute shifts.

Last year, the effort packaged about 70,000 meals in 4 1/2 hours.

Sleepy Eye volunteers have packaged about 400,000 meals since the project began there six years ago.

Sleepy Eye Kids Against Hunger Committee member Rich Mages thanked everyone who volunteered their work and financial support for the project.

"We couldn't have done it without all the volunteer help from schools, churches and financial help from businesses," said Mages.

Packaged meals of white, long-grain rice, vitamin-fortified, crushed soybeans, six mixed vegetables and a chicken-flavored vitamin-mineral mixture need only boiling water to prepare.

Food packages were placed in plastic containers and carted into a semi trailer parked just outside the Orchid Inn Minnesota Room.

A semi truck hauled the packages to a warehouse in Stewart.

From there, global relief organizations pick up the food and distribute it to the needy in places like Central and South America, Africa, Asia, Indonesia and Eastern Europe.

St. Paul native Dick Proudfit founded the organization after seeing the need to help feed the world while sailing around the globe on cargo ships following graduation from the Merchant Marine Academy.

Proudfit's obsession with feeding the world began in 1974 when he served as a medical relief team member.

He was called to Honduras after Hurricane Fifi killed or left thousands of people homeless.

"It wasn't long until I began seeing children dying around me there," Proudfit said. "One mother came to me crying for help, carrying her near dead child. That's when the Lord brought me to my knees and I knew I had to come back to do something about it."

After a series of trials and errors, Proudfit asked several Minnesota food industry executives what food would be best to feed starving children.

Proudfit has launched dozens of food packaging satellites in the United States and Canada, each a non-profit corporation.

(Fritz Busch can be e-mailed at fbusch@nujournal.com).