SPAAR Teams Up With The East Side Congregations To Raise Awareness About Food Insecurity.
Saint Paul Area Association of REALTORS® (SPAAR) held a kick-off event earlier this month to support the Second Annual Side-By-Side community meal-packing event where more than 1,000 people from local congregations will come together to pack 250,000 meals to stock local food shelves. The community meal-packing event will be held on September 15-16 at the Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran Church at 1669 Arcade Street in St. Paul.
In Ramsey and Washington counties alone, 19.7% of the population is food insecure, which impacts more than 84,000 people. In fact, Minnesotans visited food shelves a record 3.4 million times in 2017!
At the kick-off event, SPAAR members packed 15,000 meals. Earlier this summer SPAAR presented a $50,000 check to Meals from the Heart to allow the Side-by-Side meal-packing event to increase from 83,000 meals packed at its last event to this year’s goal of 250,000 meals.
This event is also supported by a donation from the Land O’ Lakes Foundation.
“Many of SPAAR’s 7,000-plus REALTOR® members are active in volunteer and philanthropic efforts in the areas where they live and work, and we wanted to give back to an organization that makes an impact to the people in their community,” said Man Huynh, president of SPAAR. “The Side-by-Side meal-packing event does just that!”
Congregations participating in this second annual event include Arlington Hills Lutheran, Asalam Mosque, Christ on Capitol Hill, First Lutheran, Good Samaritan Lutheran, Grace Lutheran Church, Gustavus Adolphus Lutheran, Hope Lutheran, North Presbyterian, Our Redeemer Lutheran, and Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church.
If you’re interested in hosting a business or community meal packing event, contact Meals From The Heart. We’ll take you through the steps and show you how we make it easy to make a difference.
