Longwood charity aims to send more than 4M meals to Puerto Rico

ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Volunteers with a Longwood charity filled the Orange County Convention Center Thursday with the goal of packing more than 4 million non-perishable meals for children on the hurricane-ravaged island of Puerto Rico.

Dave Green, who is CEO of Feeding Children Everywhere, said he felt compelled to bring relief to island's residents in the wake of Hurricane Maria.

As a boy in Central Florida, Green said he knew what it felt like to not have food to eat.

"In the early days, we really didn't necessarily know where our next meal would come from," he said. "That stayed with me throughout life."

The meals packed Thursday will be sent to the island and distributed by Federal Emergency Management Agency workers.

"There will be times (when) you'll look across this room and there will be literally just thousands and thousands of meals getting packed every five or 10 minutes," Green said.

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He said the organization has enough food but a shortage of volunteers.

"We need all the help we can get," Green said. "There's an urgent need."

Cox Media Group