The grandparents of Rabbi Glaser died in the gas chambers during the Holocaust. Since the Holocaust, the rallying cry of Jewish people everywhere has been “never again”. Rabbi Glaser says “Never again! To us or anybody”. “Prayers and ritual are important”, he says, “but God is not impressed if that is all we do while millions of innocent children are starving as victims of the racially based genocide taking place in Darfur”.

Feed My Starving Children is a Minnesota solution to helping malnourished children and their parents in areas of the world that need it most. They provide highly nutritious meals throughout Haiti, Indonesia, and many countries in Africa, including for the last 3 years, to Darfur, Sudan. The meals were designed by Minnesota scientists specifically for people suffering from malnutrition and starvation and are made up of rice, soy, vitamins and dehydrated vegetables. In the last 3 years, Feed My Starving Children has gone from having 15 thousand volunteers to 115 thousand volunteers. They went from making 3 million meals 3 years ago and are now up to 30 million meals.

As the volunteers, many of whom were children, arrived to the Brooklyn Park location of Feed My Starving Children they were greeted and given instructions to wash their hands and put on the “attractive hair nets”. When everyone was ready, Rabbi Glaser welcomed the crowd and gave a quick informative introduction and shared information about Feed My Starving Children and how everybody’s contribution will help the people of Darfur. He said that Feed My Starving Children delivers the food directly to the relief workers on the ground. They don’t go through any government agencies that can slow down the delivery. He assured the volunteers that if the situation is too dangerous, they temporarily store the food until it can be safely delivered. The meals have a 3 year shelf life.

Rabbi Glaser also showed a video to the volunteers that gave a quick but powerful overview of the situation in Darfur. The video began with the voice of an American child whining to his father that he absolutely needed a new pair of shoes, juxtaposed with photos of starving and malnourished children of Darfur. The message was a powerful wake-up call to just how much of our comfortable lives we take for granted. The video included letters from children thanking Feed My Starving Children for the opportunity to volunteer, and expressing how much their lives have changed as result of the experience.

Rabbi Glaser said there are three important ways that we all can continue to help the children of Darfur. 1) Volunteering to package food at Feed My Starving Children. For volunteer opportunities go to: www.fmsc.org 2). Give money. Each package contains enough food for six meals. One meal costs only .15 cents. A $15 donation to Feed My Starving Children will feed 100 children. A $55 donation will feed 1 child for an entire year. 3) Make noise! We need to recognize that this is political! The genocide being perpetrated on the innocent civilians of Darfur is at the hands of the Sudanese government and their allied militia, Janjaweed. President Bush has recognized that what is taking place in Darfur is indeed genocide. We need to pressure our own government, by making noise and lots of it. Change will not happen unless we make so much noise as to force our government to get involved. Unless there is a lot of noise, the Sudanese government will continue to get away with killing their own citizens, and they will continue to deny their abuses while covering it up. The best way to make change is to make noise!

After the movie and introductions from Rabbi Glaser, and also a few words by Mark Crea(right), the Director of Feed My Starving Children, the volunteers were off to the packaging area. Some of the volunteers packaged food, while others worked out in the warehouse to label packages or carry the heavy bags of ingredients to the assembly lines of volunteers.

Minnesota Interfaith Day of Action for Darfur was a big success! When the day was over, over 622 cases totaling over 134,352 meals were packaged. That many meals will feed 369 children for a year. The event raised $15000 that will be split between four organizations that include Feed My Starving Children. The other 3 organizations are all working directly to help stop the genocide and give aid to refugees. They are: American Jewish World Service, American Refugee Committee and Save Darfur Coalition.

For more information on how you can help contribute, please see the links below:

10 Things You Can Do To Help The People Of Darfur… Join the Minnesota Interfaith Darfur Coalition. Visit our website at www.minnesotansfordarfur.org We meet at Temple Israel Synagogue, 2324 Emerson Ave. S., Minneapolis, MN 55405. You can make a donation to the Temple Israel Interfaith Darfur Fund. Join a National Advocacy Group such as the Genocide Intervention Network, www.genocideintervention.net, or Save Darfur, www.savedarfur.org. You can sign up for weekly action alerts and check for local Darfur related events in your community. Donating to either group promotes advocacy and awareness for the situation in Darfur. Both groups have national campaigns and activities that you can be a part of. Call, write to or even better, visit your Congress Person and your Senators. You can find their national and local addresses by visiting www.house.gov and www.senate.gov . The current legislation to be discussed in the house when they re-adjourn is the Darfur Accountability and Divestment Act, H.R. 6140. Make sure your elected officials know that the people they represent want Darfur to be a top priority. Welcome your newly elected or returning Congressman or Congresswoman to his/her first task after the elections are over. You can also see how your elected officials are voting and if they’re sponsoring Darfur related legislation by visiting www.darfurscores.org Money talks! Make sure your investments are not in Sudan. You can join the Sudan Divestment Task Force; their website is www.sudandivestment.org. Join the “Be A Witness” Campaign, visit www.beawitness.org. Tell your television networks to be a witness and fully cover the genocide, because you can’t stop genocide if you don’t know about it. Send a letter to the editor, of your local, state and national papers. Let them know that we cannot let genocide happen again. Editors need to see a volume of op/ed submissions on a subject to motivate them to print something on the issue. Host a fundraiser. Decide if you’d like your group to focus on organizations that focus on advocacy or humanitarian aid. You may choose to support both! If you are unable to join the Minnesota Interfaith Darfur Coalition, start your own group, in your church, synagogue, mosque, school, or quite simply, your community. Have your group focus on educating, advocating and fundraising. The Genocide Intervention Network has a student arm, called STAND, Students Taking Action Now: Darfur. Save Darfur has a faith action packet if you wish to mobilize in your faith community. Host a screening of a Darfur movie. See the reverse side of this page for web links to films that cover the conflict. Last but not least, write to President Bush, www.whitehouse.gov , to all of your National elected officials (see sites above), to the United Nations www.un.org , to friends and family in other countries to encourage them to engage in their countries. The world community will need a strong, unified stance to be effective in stopping the Sudanese regime from attacking its own people.

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Linda Freemon has been a member of St. Joan of Arc for approximately 10 years. She is a mother of 3 grown boys (including identical twins) and is a new grandmother. Linda likes to spend her free time with friends, family, volunteering in the community, and running.