Working together with The Outreach Program, the  chapter of Future Farmers of America reached out Saturday morning to help those in need in the Hays community.

About two dozen members of the FFA chapter packaged 8,000 meals of fortified macaroni and cheese in the cafeteria. The meals were to be distributed to local assistance organizations, including the Community Assistance Center and the St. Joseph Food Pantry. As well, some meals will be reserved to give to students.

This is the first year the local FFA chapter packaged meals. Chapter vice president Laura Montgomery, a senior at Hays High, went to a leadership conference in Washington in the summer of 2015. She helped package meals there, through Outreach, a national organization devoted to ending hunger.

“That kind of sparked my interest to want to help out my community by packaging these meals,” Montgomery said.

Rick McNary, vice president of private and public partnerships for Outreach, brought the meals to Hays from Wichita for the students to package them on Saturday. He showed the students how to package them before they were put in boxes. There are six meals in a package and 36 packages in a box. There is a choice to package one of four fortified meals: macaroni and cheese; pasta with a tomato base; rice and beans; and cinnamon apple oatmeal. McNary said the students usually decide which meal to package.

McNary added agricultural production needs to increase by 75 percent over the next 35 years to feed nine billion people.

“The solutions to hunger longterm comes from agriculture,” McNary said. “These students are going to be part of that solution.”

The FFA chapter divides activities into different pods. Freshman Kenna Pfannenstiel is in Montgomery’s pod, which was in charge of Saturday’s event. Pfannenstiel didn’t mind getting up early on a cold, weekend morning.

“It was worth it, knowing that you’re helping someone else have a meal on their plate when we have so much and they might not,” she said.

The local FFA chapter received $1,000 from Midwest Energy Inc., and $500 each from the national FFA and the local FFA chapter to pay for the cost of the meals.

Pfannenstiel said they were looking at doing this again next year.

“I think we’re going to keep doing it every year,” she said. “We’re going to keep doing it to help people.”