When a catastrophic earthquake struck Haiti in January, people all over the world sprang into action to help, including many at Monarch Landing.

In early February, a group of about 60 residents and staff members spent a day assembling food packets for people in Haiti. They volunteered through Feed My Starving Children, a nonprofit organization that prepares packaged meals and ships them to children in third-world countries.

The Monarch Landing team joined hundreds of other volunteers in Aurora, where they worked in an assembly line scooping rice and soy protein, sealing packets, and filling cartons. In just a few short hours, the dedicated group packaged 51,000 meals for shipment to Haiti.

“It’s intensive for a couple hours, but it’s really satisfying,” says Barbara Abram, who volunteered twice before with Feed My Starving Children through Monarch Landing. She says living at the Naperville retirement community makes it easier and

Volunteers unite to help Feed My Starving Children, an organization that prepares meals for children in third-world countries. (Photos courtesy of Feed My Starving Children)

more convenient for her to do volunteer work.

“The opportunity is offered here to take busloads of us over,” Abram says. “So it is a great way and easy way to get to the [volunteer sites].”

Edith Rickert lives at Monarch Landing as well and finds the importance of volunteering unsurpassable. Whether through her church or other organizations, it has long been a part of her life—and she continues to give back now that she lives at Monarch Landing.

Like Abram, Rickert has also worked on Feed My Starving Children projects in the past. One of the best parts of the most recent experience, Rickert says, is the sense of camaraderie she felt with the other volunteers, some of whom were her neighbors from Monarch Landing and others whom she had met for the first time that day.

“You could be working with people you didn’t know and interact with them like you’re buddies,” she says of the experience.

Not only was she satisfied that she was able to help people in Haiti in a very real and tangible way, but Rickert left feeling inspired by the other volunteers. “The amazement is that people really want to give of their time and help people,” she says. “I have never seen that kind of desire; it’s not just that they want to do it—they have to do it, and I have not seen that level of enthusiasm in my life.”