By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation

Whether it's video games, checkers, trivia or actually playing their respective sports, student-athletes by nature are some of the most competitive people on the planet.

That even showed in Monday's Feed My Starving Children project at the Ferrell Center, where an army of 502 Baylor coaches, student-athletes, administrators and staff packed a school-record 139,968 meals in three two-hour shifts.

"In the second session, we got to the point where we were like, 'Hey, let's have a competition and see which table can pack the most,''' said Madeline Cypert, MobilePack event supervisor with the Minnesota-based Feed My Starving Children program. "And they were really going nuts and were like, 'Who won? Who did better?' There was definitely a good energy and excitement level. It was fun."

This was the fifth year of the mobile packing event at Baylor, with 108,864 meals packed each of the first three years and a significant increase to 124,416 a year ago. But this year's record production was a 12.5 percent increase in the total number as the volunteers averaged packing 389 meals per minute and 46,656 in each two-hour shift.

"Having done it for four years, we wanted to show a commitment to do more," said Chad Jackson, co-chair of the event and Baylor's Senior Associate Athletic Director for Compliance.

"I think it creates a challenge for people, too, to not just hit the same number every year. Let's do better," said Callie Schrank, co-chair and Assistant AD for Personnel and Administration. "You want to have it where the student-athletes feel like they're being challenged, and we really did have to push them this year."

Working at one of the eight stations and using an assembly-line process, the teams fill individual bags with the four main ingredients for a nutritional product especially designed by food scientists from Cargill and General Mills to feed starving children ÃÆ' ¢Ãƒ ¢' ¬" rice, soy, vegetables and vitamins.

With high-energy music blasting over the loud speakers, the crews work at break-neck speed to fill the bags. Once a box filled, it's moved over to a weighing table, wrapped up and placed on pallets that will be used to distribute the food.

"Every year, this is a blast," said men's basketball assistant coach Jerome Tang, who was leading a table that included basketball and baseball players. "It's a highlight of the year for us to get together and do something that will benefit others. . . . This was unbelievable, just the energy in the whole place. I love the fact that we are more."

Each of Baylor's 19 intercollegiate sports were represented, with Ellen White's equestrian team working the third shift and staying for the clean-up shift as well.

"Not everybody can go on the mission trips or what have you," Jackson said. "This is a way for us as a department to expose the masses to serving. And yet, it's right in their wheel house, it's in their strength zone to be competitive, to be efficient and trying to do well but to do it swiftly and in a competitive way. That's why I think it's been such a good fit for us."

Cypert said the meals packed by Baylor will be shipped to the Haiti Christian Mission, which then redistributes it to various charitable organizations in Haiti, "who need it a lot."

In a matter of about six hours, the work crews packed enough food to feed 383 children one meal a day for a full year.

"I think it keeps everything in perspective for our guys, knowing that you're packing food that's going into Haiti," baseball head coach Steve Rodriguez said. "When you realize the suffering they're dealing with and just the amount of food they don't have, it gives you a better understanding that we are blessed beyond belief. Just knowing that we can come in here and do this in a huge group like we did, and everybody comes together for one common cause, that's a pretty special thing."

The fact that the food is going to Haiti hit close to home since Tang was in Haiti earlier this summer for a coaching seminar and women's basketball sophomore Beatrice Mompremier's mother is from there.

"I was working with (assistant coach Sytia Messer) a good bit today in one of the first sessions, and that came up at our table," Jackson said. "When you start touching some of our student-athletes' home lands, that's pretty neat."

When all the food was packed, volleyball freshman Braya Hunt voiced a prayer, asking God "that the food we just prepared will get to the people who need it safely, and that you will continue to bless them."

Baylor has now packed more than 590,000 meals through the Feed My Starving Children project over the last five years. And at a cost of 22 cents per meal, the Athletic Department has spent over $130,000 in that span.

"There's been plenty of discussion about keeping things fresh, and we don't want things to become stale and routine," Jackson said. "That said, every time you get a group in the orientation room and you watch the video, all the rationale for why we do it comes back to center."

Started in 1987 by Minnesota businessman Richard Proudfit, Feed My Starving children is a Christian-based organization that distributes food to nearly 70 countries around the world to help break the cycle of poverty.

If you are interested in finding out more information about Feed My Starving Children, check out the web site at www.fmsc.org.