Volunteers at Meals from the Heartland packaging meals for starving people

Meals from the Heartland (@MftH) is a charity with a simple purpose: send meals to people who are starving.

Volunteers, mostly from Iowa where the charity is based, packaged up 4 million meals last year.  Even before the recent earthquake disaster in Haiti, that troubled country was a primary destination for the packaged meals.  In fact, two million meals were shipped in 2009 to Haiti, and thankfully about half of that shipment is available to Haitians now.  It wasn’t good luck — it was the result of a generous effort that comes from a desire to change the world.

Now, MftH is gearing up for a massive push to send more meals to Haiti in its time of greatest need.  MftH organizes “events” and brings in as many as 15,000 volunteers to create the meal packages. They work in shifts around the clock.  They are organizing another event to respond to the current crisis as we speak.  They have a good system.  This is not a “fat” charity with lots of overhead, it’s a few people organizing a massive volunteer effort.

What they need is money, and publicity, right now. MftH is not a solution to what’s happening in the next couple weeks, but they can, and will, be a big part of feeding people in Haiti over the longer term.  How big a part depends on who knows, and who donates. It’s a numbers game.

They need your help, and right now.

Many of us see emergencies like this happen and don’t know quite what to do.  We worry if the charity we decide to support will redirect the funds, misuse the funds, or will not act in a timely way.  MftH is a good choice.  If you donate to them you will prevent people from dying.  I urge you to click on the link below and donate what you can afford, please do it NOW. The Lutheran Church of  Hope is matching donations for the Haitian effort. Each gift of $25 is enough to create 166 meals, enough to feed a family for a couple months.

http://www.mealsfromtheheartland.org/donate/

If you are in the media, or, if you have a social media network or a blog, please help MftH get their message out, so that their next event can be their biggest ever. Post a blog piece, link to MftH’s site, and retweet messages, we need to reach as many people as we can fast. If you have a friend or contact in the media direct them to the media contact below.

This is a message that needs to go Viral.  Please help us spread this important message, it will save lives.

Media please contact:

Andrea James
Love Scott & Associates
3737 Woodland Avenue, Suite 510
West Des Moines, Iowa 50266
Phone: 515-223-1383
email: andrea{at}lovescott{dot}com