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By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Insider

Sprinkled in with a few "Sic, `Em, Bears!" were shouts for rice, bags and "Move that box!"

For the third straight year, the Ferrell Center floor was transformed into a mobile packing area on Monday as a volunteer army of 443 Baylor student-athletes, coaches and staff packed 108,864 meals for the Feed My Starving Children program.

Combined with the two previous years, Baylor has now packed over 325,000 meals for FMSC, which works with major global distribution nonprofits and imbedded missionaries to distribute meals to more than 70 countries around the world.

"When we started, I don't think we were thinking numbers," said Senior Associate Athletic Director Chad Jackson, who had done the program through his church in Birmingham, Ala., and brought the idea with him to Baylor. "I think we were thinking impact - both for those who receive the feed and those who are here packing the meals. It's just a far-reaching, impact event. That's really the essence of it."

Working in assembly-line stations with 15-20 workers at each table, there was an average of 36,000 meals packed in each of the two-hour shifts. Food scientists from Cargill and General Mills developed a nutritional product especially designed to feed starving children that includes four main ingredients - rice, soy, vegetables and vitamins.

As each box of 216 meals is filled, the teams yelled out for the warehouse workers to move the box, where it was weighed and wrapped up.

In most cases, each of the tables or stations is represented by an entire team, making for a somewhat unplanned team-bonding event. All 19 intercollegiate sports were represented, with some of them bringing every player and coach.

"We get to see it in the different places where you'll see people doing it for the first time," said Justin Quintana, FMSC Event Coordinator. "So, it's nice when (that competitiveness) is already ingrained in them. They already know about working together as a team. They do it on the field. And then, when they come in here and they've got scoops in their hands and the bags and all that, you will still see that spirit in them. It's really great to see that."

While the competitiveness is certainly encouraged, it's also a fun event with music blasting through speakers.

"We knew it was going to be a good fit, just from the institution's mission and all that," Jackson said. "But we're talking about student-athletes and ultra-competitors. The environment is set up for energy, competition, how quick you can pack them. And if you want to throw out the word, team-bonding, I think that's something our coaches are always looking for."

After each session, the boxed meals are prayed over by FMSC staff or the volunteer crews.

Taurean Prince, a junior on the men's basketball team, prayed "that we will wake up tomorrow morning and continue to walk with you."

While the meals are not currently earmarked, Quintana said "two of the biggest we serve right now are Haiti and the Philippines."

"There's a chance that it will go to one of those countries, but it really comes down to the greatest need," he said.

From Waco, the FMSC staff was headed to San Antonio, Texas, to start a community-wide project that will try to pack over 4 million meals in a five-day stretch at three different work sites.

"It's really just the whole city behind it - churches, businesses, everyone," Quintana said. "This will be the biggest one we've ever done."

Although Baylor's commitment to the project has been year to year, Jackson said it is definitely a mission project that has Athletic Director Ian McCaw's total commitment.

"The one thing that Ian and I have talked about is we don't want it to be stale. And it's not stale," Jackson said. "We do it annually, so we kind of recap and identify if this is the project we want to do, or is there something else out there that we want to look at. But I think Ian's pretty committed to doing this. (Baylor President Ken Starr) came by today, and he's come by each year, and he loves the idea."

Down the road, Baylor could even lead a community-wide project in Waco, Jackson says.

"It's just special to see," Quintana said. "We saw some athletes that had done it in the past, and they knew exactly what they were doing. They already understand it, they already have a passion for it, and they just get the job done to feed those kids."

With the 504 boxes and 108,864 meals that Baylor packed on Monday, Quintana said, it's enough to provide 283 children one meal a day for an entire year.

Jackson praised the work of Wes Yeary, Baylor's Director of Sports Ministries, in taking groups to Africa and other mission trips. But while the bigger trips "might scare some people off, just out of convenience or whatever, this is in our own environment and familiar surroundings, and it's something that's fairly easy to do." If you are interested in finding out more information about Feed My Starving Children, check out the web site at www.fmsc.org.