Dear Friends,

Fall is harvest time – a time of bounty, and a great season to share your time, treasure and talents for the good of all.

If you're looking for a great outdoor volunteer opportunity where you can make a difference and work together with your family or a group of friends, then help remove invasive buckthorn plants from the Hauberg Woods City Park on Saturday, October 10. For more information, visit our website.

Next month 5th Bridge will host the 3rd Annual Feed My Starving Children food-packing challenge November 13–15 at the Armory in downtown Northfield. During the event nearly 1,200 Northfield volunteers will package 250,000 meals and raise $42,500 to cover the costs of the meals that will feed staving children and families around the world.

This volunteer opportunity has all the elements of a valuable and worthwhile volunteer experience:

• It produces tangible results. (The average volunteer will package over 210 meals in a two-hour session.)
• It's intergenerational. The experience is open to children (grade 3 or older), senior citizens and everyone in-between. There are even sit-down jobs available for people who cannot stand for the entire session.
• An element of service learning is incorporated into the program.
• It's fun, it's easy, and it only takes two hours out of your busy day.
• Best of all, everyone will leave with the feeling that they made a difference in the world on that day.

If you are interested in participating, please sign up online at www.5thbridge.org/fmsc as soon as possible, as the time slots are filling quickly. (Over 900 volunteers have already signed up!) Individual volunteers, families and groups are welcome to participate.

This volunteer experience also has a giving piece. Besides organizing the event and recruiting volunteers, one of the responsibilities of hosting a food-packing event here in Northfield is that we, as a community, must also raise $42,500 (just 17 cents per meal) to cover the costs of the food we pack. This allows the Feed My Staving Children organization to give the food free to other partnering relief organizations who actually distribute the food to starving children around the world. While there is not a fee to participate, we ask that all volunteers share in the fundraising responsibility to the extent that they are able. The average volunteer will package about $37 worth of food in a two-hour session (that's enough to feed seven children for an entire month!). We recognize that many volunteers may not be able to give the full cost of the meals they pack, so 5th Bridge is working to find event sponsors to help bridge any gaps.

We greatly appreciate your willingness to share your time, talents and treasure to help feed starving children. Here are a few fundraising and service learning ideas to help make the experience more meaningful:

• Serve your family a meal of rice, once per week between now and the packing event, then donate the savings in groceries cost. Spend some time at the dinner table talking about your blessings and how many people in the world have so much less.
• Give up "eating out" once per month and donate the savings.
• Watch a movie at home instead of going out and donate the savings.
• Have a family game night instead of a more costly family outing and donate the savings.
• Set up a change jar and have everyone in your family, group or classroom throw in their change each day and donate all the money you accumulate.
• Get the whole family involved in clipping (and using) grocery coupons and donate your savings.
• Clean out your closets, basement and garage then have a garage sale and donate the proceeds.

To find out more about 5th Bridge's Feed My Starving Children food-packing event, and for more volunteer ideas and stories, visit our website.

Thank you for all you do to make the world a better place!

Candy Taylor and your friends at 5th Bridge