Rotarians in Coventry and Warwickshire are helping to lead the way in tackling world hunger with the return of their food packing initiative in partnership with Feed The Hungry.

It will be all hands on deck when members of The Rotary Club of Warwick, Southam, Leamington, Kenilworth and Henley-in-Arden and Coventry Jubilee, Coventry Phoenix and Coventry Breakfast Rotary Clubs join volunteers from Feed The Hungry charity and others, to pack nearly 30,000 meals to be sent to children in Africa.

The Coventry and Warwickshire Rotary clubs will also be joined by clubs in Birmingham and Redditch.

Feed The Hungry is also stepping up its Ukrainian support ahead of the onset of freezing winter temperatures.

Volunteers at the charity, which has its headquarters in Binley, are appealing for continued donations to keep pace with escalating demand as thousands more residents prepare to flee the capital Kyiv under the threat of total power loss.

It comes at a time when 40 per cent of Ukraine's energy system has been destroyed or damaged by the war which has been raging since February.

Rotary members packing food parcels back in 2019 (image supplied)

Kyiv's mayor Vitaliy Klitschko says the majority of people are now moving to rural towns and villages, such as Izmail in the South of the country.

Through its network of six international offices and warehouses, Feed The Hungry has so far delivered over 100 containers or lorries each containing 2,000 tons (2,600 pallets) of aid, into the heart of towns and villages with internally displaced refugees right across Ukraine and Moldova.

Gwyn Williams, International Operations Director for Feed The Hungry, said: "Winter is drawing in fast in Ukraine with temperatures about to drop to below freezing in the coming days as Russia keeps targeting electric and water utility infrastructure.

"Feed the Hungry had been assisting with community programs in the area and were in a good place to add them to our response program. It is a town very typical of the many places we have been delivering aid to in Ukraine throughout this atrocious war.

"With warehouses in Prague and Bucharest we are well equipped to keep a steady flow of aid into Ukraine for as long as it takes. With the help of partner organisations and community groups, we're helping to put food on the table where it's needed most, both in Ukraine and in Poland Slovakia, Moldova and Romania, who have been generous in opening their doors to millions of people who have fled the war."

Feed The Hungry are also running events to pack food parcels for Ukrainian Refugees in Eastern Europe. People can support this effort by sponsoring either a full pallet or a number of food parcels. Donations will help to provide resource and defray the cost of shipping in order to get the parcels to people who have lost everything.

Aid on its way to Ukraine (image supplied)

This month's food packing event marks a welcome return for the initiative after two years and organisers are inviting as many people as possible to lend their support, at Feed The Hungry's warehouse in Binley, on Saturday, November 19th, filling roles including packers, admin staff and car park marshals.

Jasminder Dhaliwal, of Heart of England Rotary, said: "We at Rotary District 1060 decided to help tackle the problem with local organisations. We believe in service, so a meal packing event where Rotarians and the local community could physically take part was ideal.

"Several clubs fundraised to get the money for the meals and then help pack them to send to Africa for their school feeding programme. In a lot of cases this is the only meal the child gets a day. It also encourages the children to attend school and get an education. It's a day when hundreds of Rotarians, their families and friends actively get involved in a day of packing meals to be sent around the World.

"Rotary is working hard to reduce Hunger in the UK and overseas. 821 million people in the world don't get the food they need."

The food packs, which each feed six people, contain rice, lentils, soya and multivitamin sachets, were funded by a £9,500 Rotary donation and will be distributed by Feed The Hungry.

Anyone who would like to be involved in the event on November 19 can contact Jonathan Wilding on either 01384 423834 or [email protected]

Further information about how to support other food packing events or donate, can be found here.