More than 800 volunteers are needed one week from today at three locations in central and western Iowa for an effort to fight hunger.

Dani Reick is spokeswoman for the non-profit Meals from the Heartland, which is hosting meal packaging events on Martin Luther King Junior Day at facilities in Des Moines, West Des Moines, and Omaha/Council Bluffs.

“We’re looking to have roughly about 260,000 total meals packaged for that entire day for all three locations,” Rieck says. “They’ll be packaging our ingredients, like the noodles that go into the taco mac, and the seasonings that go in the taco mac as well.”

Since 2008, Rieck says the organization has packaged and distributed almost 250-million meals which have gone to children and families in need in Iowa, across the U.S., and around the world.

“All of our taco mac bags all stay local,” Rieck says. “So for Des Moines, those are going to go to local food pantries, and at the Omaha location, they’ll go to the Food Bank for the Heartland.”

All volunteers will go through a brief training session, then they’ll head out to the floor to directly impact Iowa families in need.

“They’ll be put into an assembly line-type of packaging system. So typically we do about eight to 10 people at a table, and then they’ll work together as a team to package one bag at a time. It typically goes a lot quicker than that,” she says, “and shifts are typically about two hours long.”

About 135 volunteers are needed at Polk County River Place in Des Moines, 160 volunteers at the Embassy Suites in Omaha’s Old Market, and 520 volunteers are needed at the organization’s West Des Moines Packaging Center.

Individuals, families and groups can sign up for any of the three locations here: https://mealsfromtheheartland.org/mlk-day-2025/

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