Mobile Pack 2023
Coming Soon!
Ithaca Mobile Pack is gearing up for Mobile Pack 2023. The pack starts on Thursday, September 28th and concludes on Sunday, October 1st. We are planning to pack 225,000 meals this year.
Use the QR code to DONATE NOW or go to https://give.fmsc.org. All donations from this link will go directly to the Ithaca Mobile Pack. For more information on the actual pack and upcoming fundraisers, visit: https://ithacamobilepack.org/
News from Last Year’s
Mobile Pack 2022
Many Successes!
For a dozen years Ithaca has hosted the Feed My Starving Children Ithaca MobilePack. The last two years were interrupted because of COVID, and that pack was supposed to have happened at Cornell. Trinity Lutheran Church began the pack the first two years, and we have been major supporters through leadership and stewardship of money (over the last 12 years Trinity has given over $77,000 through our VBS and individual member giving). This year Trinity was the “host” congregation – we signed the contract – even though the pack was eventually held somewhere else.
When the final approval came from the various agencies affirming that we could once again do a MobilePack event in Ithaca, the steering committee hastily looked for a site, and found a potential packing site in the New York National Guard Armory. An interesting part of the story is that the official approval from the National Guard, came one week before the pack! That is the first success I’d like to mention here. Thanks to Staff Sergeant Amber Davis for lobbying the powers that be to make the pack both a recruiting event (which saved us from paying rent) and for convincing the National Guard that doing the MobilePack there would put the Guard in a good light – which it obviously did!
Our theme this year was “Packing at the Speed of Light” – signifying that we were trying to put the pack together quickly (doing it in five months qualifies), and we were also trying to pack the number of meals which reflect the speed of light per second (186,282). The good news is that we exceeded that by 342. The total packing numbers were 186,624 meals packed; 759 volunteers (that doesn’t actually count the 30 or so steering committee members who volunteered all your long – looking for more of those!); to this date we have raised $54,238.44 (that means that we were able to not only pay for the food that we packed, but also pay the additional 7% which FMSC requested due to COVID related shipping expenses, and we still had some left over to pay forward to next year). Another tremendous success!
Trinity had about 30 people pack, and we also were blessed to have some of our college students invite additional college students which represented another 15 or so Trinity connected packers.
Trinity provided the sound system, some computer systems, much of the additional (less seen) support for the pack such as providing some of the meals for staff, providing the rice cooker for the food samples, and picking up the tab for many of the necessary logistical supports like brooms, mops, garbage cans, and even toilet paper (since the arrangement was that the National Guard would not be responsible for that). I guess were just blessed that it wasn’t in the heat of COVID when you couldn’t find a roll of toilet paper! We also helped with setup and cleanup, PR, administration support, communication, and the leadership team of Autumn Rudlong, Pastor Foote, and Nancy. Sue Schattschneider has provided the financial accounting for the organization for the last three years. And Trinity was the meeting location for all of the steering committee meetings. Along the way we provided additional support for the Dorothy Cotton Jubilee Singers concert at Ithaca College… And a host of other things that I can’t recount because of space. All successes!
Despite the harried flurry of activity towards the end of the five-month preparation period, things came together wonderfully. It is a time where the congregation should feel they were definitely faithful stewards in every capacity. The Lord blessed this effort through our faithful stewardship, our fervent prayers, and His undeserved — but joyfully received — grace and favor. The biggest success of all!
Thank you to everyone who helped! Thank the Lord for the many successes!!!!
