Kelly Saiz
Reporter
This May, Pura Vida has lined up three interactive events in hopes of raising $17,000 to package 100,000 meals to send to hungry children in Haiti.
On Saturday and Sunday the non-profit organization and student club held an event at the school to pack the meals. On Saturday alone, 400 people volunteered and packaged some 60,000 meals.
In a further effort to reach their fundraising goal, the club held a pie toss on Thursday, May 6 during lunch; and on Sunday, May 23, there will be a 5k Fun Run.
Founder Sharon Knechtle said that the fundraisers also serve as a fun community activity. “It’s a whole lot of fun,” she said. “The final goal is to help the children who are practically starving to death, but also to bring the community to enjoy it together.”
This weekend’s packing event was organized with Feed My Starving Children, a Christian organization based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Planning for the event took a year, but it was only three weeks ago that Pura Vida learned that the meals it would package would be sent to Haiti. The meals, called MannaPacks, contain fortified rice and soy protein and are expected to make it to Haiti within the next week.
People of all different ages and communities turned out for the event. Fred Schweizer, a resident of Fairfield, heard about the event through his son’s Boy Scout troop. “It’s been great,” he said. “It’s a lot more fun than writing a check.”
The community atmosphere impressed Feed My Starving Children’s Senior Team Leader Bart Andersen, who came from Minneapolis to help oversee the event. “[The volunteers] have been on target for all of the shifts that we’ve had so far and they’ve even gone a little over,” he said. “It’s a whole bunch of different people coming together.”
Senior club leader Catharine Duane has seen the club grow tremendously since it began in her sophomore year. “We’ve raised a lot of money and we’ve given back to a lot of children,” she said. “Over the summer I got to see the orphanage in Costa Rica and see where the money was going. It’s definitely grown to be more than I would have imagined.”
Part of Pura Vida’s mission is to raise awareness through small fundraisers, such as the lunchtime pie toss, when students paid $1 to launch a whip cream plate at volunteering faculty. The pie toss, which was designed to be fun way to spread the word about the packing event and the 5k to students, raised approximately $200.
The 5k, which will take place next weekend, encourages participants to raise money by seeking sponsors. Junior club leaders Elizabeth Lewis and Kate Mannelly are looking forward to the run. “It’s going to be fun,” Kate said. “We’re going to try to get as many sponsors as we can.”
Ms. Knechtle is thrilled to be helping the needy around the world. “I absolutely love being with people who have nothing. They usually have the biggest hearts and they’re just appreciative for each breath,” she said. “They don’t take things for granted. That is what life is really about.”
For more information about Pura Vida and the upcoming Fun Run, visit www.puravidaforchildren.org.
Photos by Kelly Saiz
