The 64 Rotary Clubs in the southern half of Iowa are helping finance a shipment of food to the Philippines. One-and-a-half million meals were made by the “Outreach” organization a couple from Union, Iowa, founded to feed the hungry. Jackie Matt is the executive director of business development for the non-profit. “Floyd Hammer and Kathy Hamilton, who are the co-founders of Outreach, when the typhoon hit the Philippines just knew they needed to do something,” Matt says.

Meal-packaging events were held in Minnesota and Missouri. “And Rotary stepped up to the plate to help with the funding to actually ship the meals over to the Philippines,” Matt says. The meals were being loaded into huge shipping containers Monday, in Des Moines. “It’s pretty costly to be able to send things over to the Philippines because it does have to go by rail and then also by actual freight,” Matt says, “and it takes about 45-60 days to get to the Philippines.”

Rotarians in Manilla plan to meet the containers and monitor distribution, to ensure the meals get to disaster victims. Matt says this project fits with Rotary’s core mission, and that’s why Rotary Clubs in southern Iowa and in other parts of the country are helping to pay to ship these meals to typhoon victims.

(Radio Iowa)