Food for the Soul

You wouldn't know it from the fact that I have a blog, or the fact that I work in a very service oriented field, but I am an introvert. I can talk and be loud with the best of them, but if I don't get my me time, I'm sort of a wreck. It also takes huge amounts of courage for me to go to any social event.

Due to that and some less than perfect timing (weeknights are hard) I didn't sign up immediately for the great blogger meetup/charity event that Missy organized awhile back. However, when the earthquake(s) in Haiti hit, and a last minute cancellation meant an opening, I felt like I had to participate.

I couldn't make it to the mixer earlier (which means I didn't meet as many people and didn't come home with a giant tomato can), but I did make it to the main event at Feed My Starving Children (FMSC).

You may have heard about them, they've been in the news a lot lately because their mission is to package nutritious meals to feed over a billion starving people around the world. One of the places they focus on is Haiti, the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. In Haiti, 80 percent live in abject poverty. As in, not a little poor, but impoverished and barely living. It is a country with a complex past and a variety of issues. Issues compounded to the Nth degree by the multiple earthquakes lately.

So, FMSC is a Christian faith based organization that raises money to buy the raw supplies, locations, and shipping, and gets volunteers to do the work, and feeds millions of people around the world. I always struggle with the faith thing since that is not the path I have chosen, but while it is clearly a huge part of why they do what they do, it wasn't presented in a way that I had any issues with. Hunger knows no faith, so when it comes to helping those that it effects, I can easily set aside my issues with how some people represent their faith.

It was a great experience. I got to meet some new bloggers, I got to finally hug in person some of my favorite local bloggers. I even got to see that my shredding has inspired some others. Now I'm wishing I had been able to make it for the mixer portion. Maybe next time.

Photo credit Darcie Gust.

For other views on the evening, see Missy's post as well as the links to everyone else.