Northshore Christian Academy was already planning a missions project and trip to help Haitian children when the Jan. 12 earthquake struck Port-au-Prince. 

The academy raised more than $11,000 last month to buy food for 40,000 meals to be sent to a Haitian orphanage just 80 miles from Port-au-Prince in the Dominican Republic.

The funds will also help send a NCA team on a missions trip to the Dominican Republic to help Children of the Nations, the international missionary organization that runs the orphanage.

“It’s amazing that God had already planned to send us to serve his little ones from Haiti,” vice principal Esther Walla said.  “Now, with the earthquake, there will be so many more children that we’ll be able to impact.”

After weeks of fundraising, the academy turned its gym into a food-packaging factory so about 750 students could pack food to feed the orphan and refugee children.

“The kids were so excited about this and knew that they were saving lives,” Walla said.  “Watching them work was amazing because their hearts were in it, their minds were in it.  It brought tears to your eye.”

Students in first through eighth grade, working in shifts and at different stations, spent a day measuring, bagging and boxing meals of lentils, spice, chicken bouillon, dried vegetables and rice.

Seventh grader Connor Ghirardo worked at the bagging station, where he funneled the meal ingredients into bags, following a sequence, until the bags had about 400 grams of food. He said he can’t wait to help out again with NCA’s next missions project.

“I like being part of a bigger picture that helps people and saves lives,” he said. “I’ve never done that before, and it just felt awesome.”

First graders Keller and Erin Smith help funnel rice into a meal bag at Northshore Christian Academy.  The academy turned its gym into a food-packaging factory on Feb. 24 and had its students pack 40,000 meals for orphan and refugee children from Haiti.

Photo courtesy of Don Long

Fourth grader Austin Talbot had the job of packing the food into boxes.  He said he had fun trying to fit the meals into boxes as quickly as he could.

“I was proud that I got to be a part of helping Haiti because there are people in need over there and they need our help,” he said.

Even the academy’s preschoolers and kindergartners helped out.  They colored the 155 boxes that other students filled with packaged food.

Kindergartener Brianna Bennett drew pictures of flowers, smiley faces and stars on the boxes.  She said it felt good to help Children of the Nations with NCA’s mission project.

“We’re helping them because they’re helping other people too,” she said.

Thirty-seven thousand meals will be shipped in March to the orphanage, while 3,000 meals will be put into storage to serve as either backup for Children of the Nations or as an emergency three-day supply of food for the academy itself.