Volunteers packed 2,400 women’s care kits Saturday at Food For The Poor’s first Hearts United Community Day event of 2023 in celebration of National Volunteer Week April 16 to 22.

Volunteer Care Kits

Buoyed by community spirit, 141 volunteers moved to music and cheered each other on in the charity’s Coconut Creek warehouse as they filled bags and boxes with essential items such as wash cloths, shampoo and feminine hygiene products to help the charity prepare for the upcoming hurricane season. Volunteers also wrote personal notes of encouragement that were tucked into the kits.

Melisa Tchividjian, who volunteered with friends from New Covenant Church in Pompano Beach, said her church’s mission is to bring wholeness to the community in South Florida and beyond.

“It’s so important for women to feel cared for, to feel loved,” Tchividjian said. “With these kits, we are saying, ‘We see you and we want to make sure that you feel loved and cared for’ and that’s what God wants for all of us. He sees our deepest needs. This reflects how God cares for us.”

Miramar City Commissioner Maxwell B. Chambers was also among Saturday’s volunteers, as well as students from Florida Atlantic University’s Alpha Kappa Psi professional co-ed business fraternity and Sigma Gamma Rho sorority. 

FFTP prepositions relief kits every year to help in-country partners rapidly respond to disasters such as hurricanes or earthquakes. This year, kits will be sent to the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Grenada, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Jamaica, St. Lucia, and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as kept on hand in case a disaster hits the United States.

One of the largest international relief and development organizations in the nation, Food For The Poor feeds millions of hungry children and families living in poverty primarily in 17 countries of the Caribbean and Latin America. For information, visit www.FoodForThePoor.org.

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