Food Fight Against Hunger
When you hear the words "food fight", you probably think of students hurling sandwiches and pizza across a crowded cafeteria.
But that's a far cry from what our local high schoolers were actually doing during national volunteer week.
Students at all five Naperville high schools packed meals as part of an annual student-lead initiative called "food fight," for impoverished kids in other countries.
"In the meals there's chicken, veggies, soy and rice, which is very nourishing for the kids that live in those needy places," said Miranda Wishhart.
President of Food Fight, Jared Prosapio, is carrying on what his brother Jordan and a friend had started five years ago.
"They didn't want to just sit in the comfort zone of a high student, didn't want to sit around and do nothing so they saw an opportunity to help kids cause there are kids that are unfortunate without meals that we have the opportunity to give them those meals," said Jared.
This year the students are packing 158,000 meals to go to the Dominican Republic.
"Impact Lives, a not-for-profit based in Minneapolis, is helping with the project, collecting the stuffed boxes for shipping later.
"It's always good when we can learn to think outside of our box…think intrinsically about how nice we have it but also how others might be suffering from hunger on the other side of the world," said Mary Hoffer, Events Coordinator for Impact Lives.
Since its beginning, Food Fight has packed more than 1-million meals for kids around the globe.
"I think it's awesome that we're sending them food but we're also sending our love and show them that somebody in this crazy, big world cares about them," said Jenna Winters, co-Vice President of the group.
Some of the students will visit the Dominican Republic this summer and personally hand deliver these meals to those stricken with hunger.