On April 29th, the Bob Jones SGA organized an event that packed over 55,000 meals that went to local food banks in the area. It was a great opportunity to serve the community in a direct way. This event was primarily coordinated by Junior Class President Drew Crocker and Vice President Neha Sharma with help from Junior class SGA sponsor Mrs. Murray.  Drew’s grandfather Dr. David Crocker, also played a large role in the success of the event which included two shifts of over 110 people each and took place in the large gym.

Dr. Crocker’s organization Operation Inasmuch has been managing these types of service events since 1995. Through their food packing events, they managed to pack over 500,000 meals last year and they are projecting just as much this year. In addition to food packs, they work with churches to help enable congregations to serve their communities in various different forms.

For the food pack, Operation Inasmuch helped manage the logistics of getting the food to Bob Jones, helping train the team on the process of packing the meals. This included funneling the ingredients into bags, ensuring bags were the correct weight, sealing the bags, and grouping the bags to prepare for boxing. Once everyone was in place for the pack, it was a very efficient system for quickly packing the food.

“Although our goal was to pack 25,000 of each meal, we were actually able to pack 26,000-plus meals of both oatmeal and mac and cheese,” Drew said. The food pantries that received the meals were Asbury United Methodist, Harvest House, St. Paul United Methodist and Good Shepherd United Methodist. The food is good for about 2 years so it has plenty of time to get into the hands of those who need it.

This event was truly a great opportunity to get the Bob Jones student body and Madison residents involved in community service. Hopefully, the SGA will be able to partner with Operation Inasmuch in the future to host another event like this.