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Annual Meeting provides opportunities for hands-on outreach

Each summer, the Good Samaritan Society’s Annual Meeting offers staff members from Society locations across the nation to come together to share best practices, hear about new initiatives and celebrate a shared commitment to the Society’s mission and ministry.

In 2009, the Society added a social accountability project to its Annual Meeting agenda as another way to live out the Society’s mission to help those in need. Annual Meeting attendees assembled and packed more than 123,000 meals through a partnership with Feed My Starving Children, a Christian nonprofit organization that distributes food to severely malnourished children in more than 60 countries.

Before the meals were packed, the Society’s 240 locations and its National Campus hosted fundraisers for several months to purchase the meals. The meals staff members purchased and packed were enough to feed 338 children every day for a year.

For the 2010 Annual Meeting this June, the Society is planning another hands-on outreach project with a packing event of 2,500 baby layettes and 5,000 personal health kits for children and adults in Zimbabwe, Africa. Annual Meeting attendees — as well as friends, families and residents from local Society centers — will have the opportunity to volunteer during Annual Meeting to assemble the care packages that will be sent to Karanda Mission Hospital, the Society’s newest Project Outreach mission partner.

As with last year’s outreach project, even those who are not able to attend Annual Meeting can help with the efforts. The Society is inviting anyone from its locations to make and send a quilt to be shipped to Zimbabwe with the care packages. Organizers say they also are accepting donations for new and gently used crayons to be included in comfort bags for children.

The Society has partnered with the Orphan Grain Train to ship the supplies to Karanda Mission Hospital. The Society is asking staff members, residents, family members and friends for donations to go toward the cost of purchasing the items for the care packages, as well as the cost of shipping the items.

Receiving a simple hand-packed care package from the Good Samaritan Society will help create an environment in Zimbabwe where people feel loved, valued and at peace.