Pack 60,000 meals in 4 hours
On Saturday, February 28, 2026 St. Maria Goretti Parish and members of the community will collaborate with Cross Catholic Outreach to pack 60,000 meals for men, women and children facing food insecurity in a developing country.
Date: Saturday, February 28, 2026
Time: Shift 1 – 9:30AM-11:30AM, Shift 2 – 12:00PM-2:00PM
Location: St. Maria Goretti Parish – Drexel Hall
To pack 60,000 meals, We need your help —
$19,800 IN DONATIONS
To package 60,000, we need to raise $19,800 by January 14th. This puts the cost of each meal at just $0.33.
125-150 VOLUNTEERS
Many hands make light work! For each 2-hour shift, we need a maximum of 125-150 volunteers.
MAKE AN IMPACT right at home
Join St. Maria Goretti and our local community as we come together to pack 60,000 meals for men, women and children facing food insecurity in a developing country with Cross Catholic Outreach.
Contact Us
For questions or concerns about this event, please contact Cindy Shepherdson:
Phone #: 719-482-6645
Email: cmshepfam@gmail.com
FAQ
Why are we packing meals?
Tonight, nearly one billion people around the world will go to bed hungry. In developing countries, the poorest of the poor cannot find enough food to sustain their families. Without food, many lack the strength to work or attend school; in the worst cases, hunger leads to starvation and even death. Malnutrition is especially dangerous to vulnerable populations, including orphans, young children, pregnant mothers, the elderly and families suffering from extreme poverty.
What are Vitafood meals?
Vitafood is a protein-rich food product scientifically formulated with key vitamins and nutrients to energize, strengthen and improve the health of malnourished children and families. The fortified rice, vegetable and soy meals are designed to help restore the health of malnourished children and provide a reliable source of food to orphanages, schools and hungry families. Meals are sealed in airtight packets to prolong shelf life and maximize the number of meals shipped in each container.
Cross Catholic Outreach ministry partners rely on shipments of Vitafood to feed hundreds of thousands of meals to hungry children and families in poverty-stricken areas such as Guatemala, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
What kind of impact do these events have?
Just last year (2024) through Cross Catholic food packing events and financial support from Catholics around the U.S., 25.9 million Vitafood meals were shipped to hungry children and families.
Where are these meals going?
At this time, we do not know which developing country our specific collection of meals will be shipped to. This information will be shared after the food packaging event. In the past, meals from other food packaging events have been shipped to Guatemala, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
What is Cross Catholic Outreach?
Cross Catholic Outreach, a 501(c)(3) and official Catholic ministry, partners with bishops, priests, religious and lay workers to bring food, water, housing, education, medical care, orphan support, microenterprise and disaster relief — and the love of Christ — to the poorest of the poor in more than 30 countries. Working through church-based and faith-based partners, the organization supports both large ministries with financial and accountability resources and smaller, community-based programs with direct aid. Learn more at crosscatholic.org
