REBECCA PUTTERMAN - rputterman@newsobserver.com
Russell Cotton of Mount Vernon Church in Clayton, left, helps load the Stop Hunger Now truck at Hocutt Baptist with Tom Ricks of Horne Memorial Church.
CLAYTON -- Once Yvon Pierre returns to Haiti this week, he'll be able to tell his orphanage about more than a hundred people whom he met in North Carolina.
He'll tell the children that these apparent strangers have made it a priority to ease their struggles, if only a little.
"It's heartwarming to see that many people involved in it," said Al Carpenter as volunteers swept up grains of rice at the end of the Stop Hunger Now event at Hocutt Baptist recently. Carpenter is president of the board for the Ryan Epps Home in Haiti where Pierre runs the school, church and home for children in need.
Horne Memorial United Methodist is where the Stop Hunger Now campaign began with church and Rotary member Tom Ricks, who raised $10,000 to organize the 40,146-meal packaging event, happily put on his hairnet, got down on all fours to sweep up rice, and lifted heavy boxes of meals into the Stop Hunger Now delivery truck.
It hasn't been an easy task, but the fervor to help Haiti seems to have caught on. Fourteen churches and eight civic groups signed on to help package more than 250,000 meals by the end of February and send them to the children's home and other people in need in the surrounding villages.
Once all the meals are packaged, they will be sent to Port-au-Prince, where Pierre himself will meet the cargo and help distribute it to three groups, including his own.
Even when Zelibor called time on the event, volunteers couldn't stop working , rushing to pack a few more meals.
