Volunteers pack 75,000 meals for war refugees
GREENWICH — Lisa Tebbe, whose own parents were refugees in World War II, is committed to a local humanitarian effort to help feed the refugees who have left war-torn Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February.
Tebbe has joined hundreds of her fellow parishioners from Christ Church Greenwich and other volunteers in working to pack meals to send to Poland, which has taken in an estimated 2.9 million of the more than 5 million Ukrainians who have fled their homeland.
“To know that we're feeding people and that there are people who really don't know when their next meal is coming, or from where, we're going to meet that need,” Tebbe said.
Christ Church has now hosted two sessions of the Emergency Packathons, with 425 volunteers packing 75,000 meals and raising $27,200 for the effort.
“Everyone's been so aggrieved by the Russian invasion,” said the Rev. Marek Zabriskie, in recent statement on the food drive. “Someone once said, ‘Look for the angels.' Well, the angels are here.”
This past Friday evening, about 200 people from around the region went to the Episcopal church on East Putnam Avenue to load up starchy dried food, as well as dehydrated vegetables, vitamin powder and bean protein, into sealed boxes. Volunteers weighed the packages, sealed them
and boxed them for distribution.
The volunteers assembled a total of about 35,000 meals in the Parish Hall during the shift.
The packages are a simple and cost-effective way to feed children and families who are taking refuge in Poland as the war in Ukraine rages since the
Russian invasion about 10 weeks ago, organizers said.
At the previous Packathon at Christ Church on March 26, about 250 volunteers packed 36,000 meals for the Ukrainian refugees. Those meals were scheduled to arrive in Poland on Tuesday.
The shipping company, which picked up the container at the docks in New Jersey, shipped the food to Poland for free. Church members raised the funds to purchase the food.
An extensive amount of preparation went into the Emergency Packathon event, the second such operation that the church has carried out in recent weeks. Co-chairs and parishioners Dan Broderick and Melissa Redmond organized the volunteers and gave them training after they arrived for the packaging work, also working out the logistics and delivery system.
Additionally, a team of Christ Church parishioners and clergy are working to help refugee families to resettle in the United States.
“The Ukraine situation is enormously significant,” Zabriskie said. “It is hard to watch the news and sit still. We pray for the people who are suffering, and we want to help in any way that we can."
To contribute to the efforts at Christ Church to help Ukrainian refugees or for more information, visit christchurchgreenwich.org or https://onrealm.org/ ParishChristChu/-/form /give/now.