Campus charity group to send aid to those in need

A new student organization will be shipping food packages to people in need soon.

The group, Then Feed Just One, aims to help families in Central America, South America and Africa.

Then Feed Just One is a non-profit organization based in Le Mars, Iowa, and was brought to USD by first-year students and co-presidents Krayton Schnepf and Josie Galles.

The two have been involved with charity work since they were in elementary school, Galles said.

“We started packing when we were kindergarteners, and we did it throughout all of elementary, all middle school and all high school,” Galles said. “Then we went to Honduras on a service trip and we saw how much our food packing had impacted those people who literally didn’t eat every day.”

Galles said since that trip, where they saw people’s poor living conditions, they’ve been inspired to help others as much as they can.

This led to Galles and Schnepf to bring Then Feed Just One’s food packing program to USD.

“It’ll go all over, especially Africa and then Central America and South America,” Galles said. “It goes everywhere, all third world countries.”

Wednesday’s food packing event will be the group’s first activity on campus, and is the culmination of several weeks of planning, Galles said.

Galles said there will be tables set up for participants to put rice, whole grain, vegetables and chicken powder into a bag that will feed up to six people.

For the first event, food will be provided by Richard Seivert, a retired teacher from Galles and Schnepf’s former high school, who gets the food through Kids Against Hunger, a partner of Then Feed Just One.

“Basically right now we’re asking for volunteers to help kick that off, because obviously the more the merrier,” Galles said.

Kailyn Mutsch, a first-year medical biology major, said it can be hard to get people to volunteer this time of year because of approaching finals.

Nonetheless, the group got students to sign up for Wednesday’s event.

“We wanted it in the middle of the week, because we don’t think people are really focused at the beginning and the end,” Galles said. “And we wanted it before the end of the semester so that when we start the fall semester we can kick it off with the people that helped out and have those members available.”

The time slots for the food packing event are 15 minutes long.

“Seriously, one small action can make such a large effect so those 15 minutes can help so many people,” Mutsch said.

Galles said they want to put together a total of 2,000 to 5,000 food packages during the first event. By next semester, the group is planning to ship a total of 20,000 to 30,000 food packages.

If more people understood the seriousness of poverty and hunger in other countries, Galles said more would volunteer.

“When we went to Honduras there was a little boy that we were offering food to and he literally said, ‘I can’t because it’s not my day to eat,'” Galles said. “I think that is pretty powerful. So if people keep that in mind, they’d be really interested in this organization.”