Members of the 11-Time National Champion Augsburg College wrestling team volunteered again at Feed My Starving Children charity packaging meals for children around the world for a two year grand total of 46,244 meals.
Forty-three wrestlers, coaches and managers from the Augsburg wrestling program, along with 15 other volunteers, participated in the meal-packing session. According to the Feed My Starving Children website: “Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit Christian organization committed to feeding God’s starving children hungry in body and spirit. The approach is simple: children and adults hand-pack meals formulated specially for starving children, and we ship the meals to nearly 70 countries around the world.” Feed My Starving Children has three locations in the Twin Cities, two locations in Illinois and another in Arizona.
Augsburg head coach Mark Matzek said that the Auggie wrestlers packed 90 boxes, — 19,244 meals, enough to feed 54 people for a full year.
“This experience for our wrestlers, coaches, and managers was priceless,” Matzek said. “The collaboration of 60 people to measure, package, and box food that will serve 19,244 meals in one hour is truly staggering. Our team was able to come together off the mat and work with one another, as well as other volunteers, to serve populations who are stricken by extreme poverty in the name of the Lord. I was proud of the team for the way they carried themselves and how hard they worked. Two moments stick out in my memory – 1) when we surrounded the boxed food and blessed it, and 2) when the group leader at FMSC announced the quantity of meals (19,244) that we had produced this year for a two year total of 46,244 and I could see a great sense of accomplishment and fulfillment in each team member’s face. I’m very proud of these young men and women. Their experience will be long lasting and truly be a highlight of this year, as we continue to help those less fortunate then us and they look forward to doing it again.”
Some comments collected by Matzek from the Auggie wrestlers:
- “Viva Tousant”
- “I am going to come back and do this again.”
- “I have never done something like that before.”
- “It was fun helping out. It was also fun to compete with one another as we tried to out-package our other teammates, with the end result being 19,244 meals.”
- “It was exciting to see everyone on the team competing with one another for a good cause.”