Bedford Rotary Plans Pay It Forward Quarter Million Meal Packaging Event

Service: Building on the success of its Pay It Forward initiative in April, 2013, the Rotary Club of Bedford announced today that it will be significantly expanding the program in 2014
 
 
 
As it did last year, Rotary will be providing Pay it Forward bracelets, and working with students in the Bedford Schools to make an active effort to help others.  The program will culminate in a huge town-wide event on Saturday, April 26, 2014 where the goal is to package over a quarter million meals to send to children in Mali, West Africa.
 
At last year’s inaugural event, the town held a 2-hour, 15,000 meal packaging event on a Thursday evening.  “The response was tremendous!” said immediate past President Pete Colgan.  “Based on the enthusiasm for the idea, we’re going to significantly raise the bar this year.”
 
Linda Cargiuolo and Diana Jarvis will be co-chairing the program this year.  “To make the meal packaging event a success at this scale will require significant support from corporations and like-minded community organizations,” said Linda.  “We’ve just started reaching out to churches, companies, and need to line up sponsors soon.”
 
“To package 280,000 meals will require us to raise over $70,000 and schedule 2,300 volunteer hours during the one-day, eight-hour event,” said Diana Jarvis.  “It’s a daunting challenge, and we’re going to need help from everyone – school kids, senior citizens, local businesses, church groups, sports teams, town employees, and the list goes on and on.  The fact that we’ll need so much help will, we hope, really bring us together as a community.”
 
Stop Hunger Now is the organization that will be arranging the logistics for the packaging and distribution of the food.  “They do the hard work,” said Rotary President Bob Cassidy, “of organizing the ingredients, packaging, and shipment of the meals.  All we need to do is organize the funding, the people, and the happy energy that will be required to pull this off.”
 
Those interested in learning more should visit www.bedfordmarotary.org/payitforward.cfm, contact the Bedford Rotary at Bedford.rotary@gmail.com, or call Diana Jarvis at (781) 929-9162.
 
 
About Pay It Forward
The Pay It Forward movement was sparked by an old idea, brought to life most recently in Pay It Forward, a 1999 novel by Cather Ryan Hyde, in which a twelve-year-old boy creates a plan to change the world by doing a good deed for three people and asking them to "pay it forward" to three others who need help.  The book was made into a movie starring Kevin Spacey and Helen Hunt in 2000.  Additional information can be found at http://www.bedfordmarotary.org/PayitForwardDay.cfm and http://www.pifexperience.com/
 
About the Rotary Club of Bedford
The Rotary Club of Bedford is a service organization comprised of local professionals committed to the ideal of Service Above Self.  The Club meets weekly on Tuesdays at noon at the Doubletree Boston-Bedford Glen Hotel for fellowship, lunch and an informative presentation.  Additional information is available at www.bedfordmarotary.org.
 
About Stop Hunger Now
Stop Hunger Now is a Raleigh-based international hunger relief agency that has been fulfilling its commitment to end hunger for more than 13 years. Since 1998, the organization has coordinated the distribution of over 90 million meals and other lifesaving aid to children and families in 76 countries.  Stop Hunger Now works with international partners that ship and distribute the meals in-country. Stop Hunger Now's meals primarily support school lunch programs. This process of distribution through school feeding programs in hunger-stricken regions, is seen as a practical means to end hunger. Additional information is available at www.stophungernow.org
 
Additional Information:
Linda Cargiuolo
978-500-2378
 
Peter Colgan
781-775-1651
 
Diana Jarvis
781-929-9162