Since 2017, the city of Bagley has held their annual Northwest Minnesota Food Pack, which gives the community an opportunity to help feed families in need around the world.

“We’re averaging about 100,000 meals a year,” said Northwest Minnesota Food Pack organizer Michael Davis. “It covers 20 counties in northwest Minnesota. There’s 460,000 people in the event area and there’s fundraising in all 20 counties.”

During the charitable event, volunteers were tasked with overseeing the meal packing process from start to finish in an assembly line-type process. Each meal consists of four key ingredients: rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables, and essential vitamins.

“[A] person puts a bag on a funnel, boom-boom-boom-boom! The four products go in there, it goes down to the person who weighs it according to what is necessary for the bag,” explained LifeRice director Jeff Boyum.

From there, the meals are sealed and packed into boxes for shipping. Every year, the hand packed meals are delivered to a different location in need somewhere around the world, with this year’s meals being delivered to Ukraine.

“Since the war started last year, the need has increased, so all of our food will go there,” said Boyum.

“There’s a great need, you know, not only in our country but worldwide for more of this to go on,” said Davis.

This year’s food pack saw just over 300 volunteers from the surrounding community, including several students from area schools.

“I would say at least 75-80% of the volunteers are, you know, 18 and under,” estimated Davis.

“I think it’s wonderful, particularly the multi-age, you know, inter-generational aspect of it because you can have grandparents bring their grand kids and participate at the table,” said Boyum. “So it’s very family friendly.”

This event also serves as a tradition for Bagley High School’s student council, as each year the group contributes their time to assist the food pack.

By — Justin Othoudt