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Community Corner

Laurie Cantillo: The Kids Wore Hair Nets!

New Canaan Patch's Sunday columnist says packing meals for kids in Haiti is a real accomplishment for her own kids.

I am blessed with great kids. They're accomplished students and athletes. They're respectful, responsible, and, amazingly, they all get along. Trust me, I realize how blessed I am.

When my oldest son applied for college, he had excellent grades and test scores. He was the captain of the high school rowing team. But completing the community service portion of the application was a struggle.

As a lifelong volunteer for dozens of causes, I wondered how I'd been remiss in teaching my kids the importance of giving back.

So I took them over to the high school this weekend where hundreds of New Canaan families, civic groups, and sports teams worked together to help PuraVida for Children reach its goal of packaging 100,000 meals for children left homeless by the Haiti earthquake.

Donning stylish hairnets and disposable gloves, 120 of us assembled in the cafeteria of New Canaan High School to receive our marching orders. After viewing a short introductory video and photos of malnourished children with pleading eyes, we were rarin' to save the world. Dividing into groups of 17, we quickly fell into an assembly line of measuring, scooping, mixing, weighing, heat-sealing, and packing. Each volunteer (from age six to 60) had a specific task, with the mission to blend and bag four ingredients (rice, soy protein, vitamins, and dehydrated vegetables) to make six quick, nutritious meals.

As we fell into a rhythm, the competitive juices invariably started to flow, and groups cheered "box!" with every accomplishment, keeping score. One young boy in a Rangers jersey celebrated each box with so much exuberence, his voice could be heard over the whole room. As we switched jobs, a soft-spoken little girl carefully trained me on how to open a plastic bag and place it beneath a funnel. Strangers smiled and introduced themselves. We laughed and made jokes about life on the assembly line.

After a frenzied two hours and a lot of rice clean-up, we learned that we'd packed 144 boxes or almost 25,000 meals. Doing the math, that will provide 67 kids with a square meal a day for a year. The bags that last touched our hands will soon be touched by someone in Haiti, which is a really cool thought.

Of course, the kids in Haiti aren't the only ones who benefit from our sacrifice of an afternoon of shopping or video games. My nine-year-old was so excited at the end of his shift, he begged to return the next day.

We climbed in the car and made the trek to our home and our full pantry, our stomachs growling from missing lunch. No one complained.

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