‘Haulin’ Oats’

“Many hands make light work,” as the saying goes, and at the Meals of Hope food packing event Saturday morning in the Marco Island Charter Middle School (MICMS) gymnasium, you could see first-hand how a community, working together, can make good things happen in a short time. 

You just didn’t want to get in the way. With the energy level in the gym sky-high and dozens of teams clamoring for more supplies or sending off completed boxes of meals, standing still on the gym floor was an invitation to get run over – perhaps by a seven-year-old pushing a hand truck bigger than himself. 

In just two hours, 525 volunteers packed 204,480 nutritious meals, all destined for those in Southwest Florida needing food assistance. The MICMS gymnasium, looking like a cross between a factory floor and a rather agitated beehive, buzzed with activity as team members working on the assembly line each took care of their individual job to bring the overall task to fruition. Over the course of a few hours, something like 143,000 lbs. of bulk food was packaged with over 200,000 oatmeal breakfasts that will go to local Southwest Florida food pantries and families. 

Some team members ladled the individual ingredients into each bag, some heat-sealed the packages, some shuttled the completed boxes of food to a collection point, and some kept the teams supplied, delivering tubs of oats, apples, and other ingredients from enormous bulk cartons that Meals of Hope buys in large quantities. With the organization’s purchasing power, each meal can be provided for an amazing 29 cents per meal – even with inflation.

DJ Jason Beal kept the music pumping with a succession of up-tempo, bass-thumping numbers. He got the packers raising their hands to “YMCA,” the organization that incidentally had at least three tables of volunteers packing, and announced, “We’re haulin’ oats this morning, so here’s a tune from (wait for it) Hall and Oates.” 

Along with oatmeal, other packing events feature a bean and rice casserole, vegetable and rice soup, macaroni and cheese, pasta with tomato sauce, and lentils with rice. All are fortified with 21 vitamins, minerals, and protein. 

Saturday’s event was the culmination of a year-long effort that began shortly after last year’s packaging event, with a series of happy hours and a 50/50 raffle at Stan’s to raise the money necessary to buy the ingredients for the meals packaged in the gym. 

Marco Island’s effort won great praise from Meals of Hope founder Steve Popper, who popped up everywhere around the gym to help keep things moving. Key organizers Deb Henry, newly elected to the Marco Island City Council, Sue Purvis, and longtime “logistics czar” Erik Condee were corralled to pose for a group photo with Popper, but it wasn’t easy to get them all standing still in one place for more than a moment, and the work continued all around them. 

“This group puts on the best-organized, easiest packaging event of any we do,” said Popper. Since beginning in Naples 17 years ago, Meals of Hope has grown to be nationwide and has packaged and given away “something over 106 million meals,” he said. “We’ll pack 14 million meals this year in all 48 contiguous states. Today, we’re doing events in Pittsburgh, North Carolina, Maryland, New Mexico, and Alabama, as well as Marco Island.”

Meals of Hope also runs weekly food pantries, including 15 in Southwest Florida. At the food pantries, 4,000 families per week receive bags of groceries, including frozen meat, fresh produce, canned goods, cereal, feminine products, and more. They recently inaugurated two food pantries in Immokalee, focusing on infants with baby food, formula, diapers, and bottles. 

The food packaged on Marco Island stays in Collier County, said Popper, including on Marco Island, where there are still people who don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Meals of Hope Marco still need to cover the cost of this year’s packing before starting on next year. Supplies for the event cost $58,000 this year, and fundraising is still lagging, said Condee. 

“Over the last few years,  the cost of his event has almost doubled due to the cost of the raw food product.”

In addition to contributions from the island’s Kiwanis and two Rotary Clubs, and the 2024 Friends of Hope, those who have provided leadership giving are All Event Party Rental – Tom Mann, Condee Cooling and Electric – Erik Condee, Law Offices of William G. Morris, Tom Menaker, Donna Dubey, Dennis and Joan Pidherny, Jim and Allyson Richards, Arne and Jill Sandberg, Gene and Wanda Burson, Robert and Donna Reiley, Robert and Catherine Thomas, Traute Gentry, Susan Purvis, Alan and Linda Sandlin – Sandlin Team, and Marco Office Supply – Phil Penzo.

For more information or to make a donation to Meals of Hope, a 501(c)3 charity, go online to www.mealsofhope.org.