CINCINNATI, Feb. 27 (UPI) -- An Ohio non-profit organization is spending four days preparing 1 million meals and other provisions to send to hunger-stricken Haiti, officials said.
A Child's Hope International/Kids Against Hunger-Cincinnati in Milford said it expects to see 3,100 volunteers at its packing marathon that began Friday and will end Monday, The Cincinnati Enquirer reported Saturday.
As a result of the January 2010 earthquake in Haiti, hundreds of thousands of people, hungry and in poor health, are still living in temporary camps, the Enquirer reported.
"I was homeless and hungry for two years. It wasn't the earthquake that affected me as much as it was when I found out how many people were starving," said Jacqueline Hill, 19, a Withrow University High School senior.
"We're trying to fill 3 1/2, 53-foot trucks. If we turn away, we are accepting the fact that children will perish from malnutrition, neglect and disease," said Larry Bergeron, the group's founder and former Mason mega church pastor.
Seventy-two tons of ingredients costing about $250,000, were bought for the weekend project, the Enquirer said.
Kids Against Hunger said it also will send medicine and the first of a number of 15-foot by 18-foot steel-reinforced buildings for assembly that sleep 12 children.
The objective is to train and employ a Haitian crew to assemble the prefabricated structures to house some of Haiti's 380,000 orphans, the Enquirer said.
