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"Feed The Children" Offers Thousands in Cedar Rapids Food, Supplies

By Chris Earl

With boxes full -- and the streets clogged -- this Saturday morning would be a very unusual but satisfying one.

"Yeah, it's amazing," said Jaycie Beer, 11, of Cedar Rapids, as she looked around at so many people coming for help.

The cars, trucks and minivans curled around the First Lutheran Church in downtown Cedar Rapids as people hit the gas and the brakes for 30 or even 45 minutes -- all for a week's worth of free groceries through Feed The Children. Dozens of people, from all over, helping thousands of Cedar Rapidians.

"We got here last night through the rain and the wind," said Connie Bieritz. She was part of a group that drove up Friday night from Aurora, Illinois, with plans only to stay for a single night and help.

"I love it," said Zach Gorman of Swisher as he loaded boxes into the trunk of a car. "To see these people come out after the flood for a helping hand."

Distributing 1,600 boxes of free food, toiletries and even makeup takes hours of planning.

"No one in this town wanted to touch it because it was way too big," said Craig Brown of First Lutheran Church. So he did, working "80 hours" to make the operation

Whether big as in these boxes -- or small -- as in the difference even a little help like this can make for those struggling -- a constant message pushed through.

"We have so much," said Noah Recker, a seventh-grader from Regis Middle School. "We at least want to give something back."

"I didn't expect this many people to be here," said his classmate Will Fabiano as they both loaded boxes onto trucks.

"To get 1,500 cars an hour, about 12 seconds for each vehicle, it's organized chaos," said Craig Brown.

Feed The Children is in its thirtieth year and claims, in 2008, it helped distribute 133 million pounds of food.

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