A group of about 450 volunteers was hard at work in Our Saviour’s Lutheran Church in Humboldt when at about 11:40 a.m. Friday they finished meal No. 2 million.

Since its first meal-packing operation in 2011, the group has packed 2 million meals. And because they kept on working Friday and had another session on Saturday, the total is well past 2 million meals.

“We never fathomed it would amount to this,” said Allen Goche, a longtime volunteer and spokesman for the group.

The Humboldt group’s effort is part of Meals from the Heartland. On Friday, leaders of that group presented a plaque to the local volunteers.

-Submitted photo
Students from Humboldt Community Schools and St. Mary Catholic School were on hand Friday to help package meals for Meals from the Heartland. The effort resulted in the packaging of 2 milllion-plus meals since 2011.

According to Goche, about 90 percent of the volunteers who worked Friday were students from Humboldt Community School District and St. Mary Catholic School.

The meals consist of soy granules, rice, vitamin powder and vegetables.

Goche said the supplies are delivered by Iowa Central Community College truck driving students. The finished meals are then picked up by those students, he said.

The teamwork involved in packaging the meals “creates a community interactive, fuzzy chemistry,” according to Goche.