Project Areas: Distribution: Fairbury
The Fairbury World Relief Distribution Center is supported by the Cissna Park, Forrest, Fairbury and Gridley, Illinois Apostolic Christian churches. The center serves as a hub for several projects. One of these projects is to collect and distribute clothing to the needy. Volunteers from the four churches come two times a month to sort clothing which has been donated. The clothing is then shipped world wide.
Another project is the Packaged Meals Program which began in 1999 when a variety of dry
goods were donated to the Fairbury Distribution Center. Recipes were used to blend the ingredients into ready to make meals. Brethren then began developing a project to produce low cost nutritious meals using dry ingredients. The program of packaging and shipping dry mix meals was approved by the National World Relief Board as the “Meals in a Bucket” program in 1999.
The research and development of this program included sending meals to Haiti and Jamaica to test their reception. It was discovered that a one pot meal is essential, the chicken flavored rice dishes being received the best across all cultures. A Chicken Rice Pilaf dish was developed using soy protein, chicken flavor and rice. This dish provides valuable protein to people who are often nutritionally deficient in this area. A chicken or beef flavored barley soup was also developed using barley, rice, soy protein, flavoring, and dried vegetables.
The current national Packaged Meals Program has two aspects. Meal kits are available from the Fairbury Distribution Center for churches who would like to have a project packaging meals. A Chicken Rice Pilaf packaging system in the Distribution Center produces about 9,000 meals an hour in a sealed bag printed with the World Relief logo. The cooking directions are printed in English, Spanish, Creole, and Romanian. The Faibury Center has shipped packaged meals to Jamaica, Haiti, Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala, Ukraine, Latvia, Belarus and Moldavia as well as within the United States.
The Fairbury center also packages corn from local farmers to be shipped to those in need. The shipments are sent to Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Grenada. The recipients of these shipments were non-government organizations including orphanages, hospitals, and group homes for the elderly and homeless. Often the recipients are not receiving the social and government assistance that we are accustom to in America. The grain is usually ground for flour or made into a porridge cereal. It is not hard to recognize that the needs of these people are much greater than what we see in our daily lives.
We are thankful for many brethren, being moved with compassion, who have provided countless labors at our distribution center to help those in need. Our forefathers quietly labored, the right hand not knowing what the left hand was doing, and they reaped the blessings of God. We ask God to bless us in like manner.