Production line for minestrone soup

For the fifth year, our church assembled a team to help prepare vacuumed-sealed meals as part of the Casco Bay Cluster of United Methodist Churches “End the Growling” mission.

For almost two hours, our team of 11 adults and children carefully filled pouches with soy, oats, pinto beans, noodles, freeze-dried vegetables, and packets of hot sauce. The team completed 468 pouches. Each pouch contained six servings, meaning the Cape team completed ingredients for 2,808 servings of minestrone soup.

Boxes of the pouches will be distributed to soup kitchens, pantries, schools and other organizations in the Greater Portland area and throughout the state.

“End the Growling” is part of the national meal-packing program run by Outreach Inc., a non-profit 501(c)(3) located in Union, Iowa. The Outreach mission is to provide safe water, good, medical care and education to children and adults in need, both locally and worldwide.

Our team this year included Julie, Sawyer and Easton Munz, Deanne Burr, Meredith Dalessandro, Clint Lawrence, Sandra Hartford, Bruce and Sue Lind and Carol Haider.

The event was held at the Peoples United Methodist Church in South Portland.

Click here for more images of this year’s “End the Growling” mission