Many students from the class of 2010 volunteered this summer at the Feed My Starving Children facility in Eagan.
Feed My Starving Children (FMSC www.fmsc.org) is a Christian non-profit organization dedicated to feeding starving children. Their approach is simple: Volunteers hand-pack meals formulated by Minnesota food scientists specifically for starving children. FMSC ships their meals to approximately 70 countries and last year they provided over 96 million meals.
Over the summer we had 6 different opportunities to volunteer with this organization and we accumulated more than 50 volunteer hours.
This fall there will be 3 more opportunities to volunteer with FMSC in Eagan. The event dates are: October 14th, November 11th, and December 2nd.Each event is on Thursday at 8:00 – 9:30pm. If you are interested in joining the fun please contact Paula Wirtz, volunteer coordinator for Net Impact, wirt4719@stthomas.edu.
Jeremiah Program – Cook for Kids
This past summer we also worked with another great organization called the Jeremiah Program (www.jeremiahprogram.org). We participated in their Cook for Kids program, which required us to create a menu, purchase the necessary food items and then prepare the meal. Our meals served 30 
mothers and 15 kids. We were well received by the families and rewarded with beautiful smiles from the children. The mothers in this program are fighting their circumstances and going back to school so that they can give their children a fair chance at life.
Smile Flash Mob
On October 6thwe had the first event of the fall semester. It was a Flash Mob at IDS Center organized to benefit the Smile Network International. According to Wikipedia, “a flash mob is a large group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perform an unusual and pointless act for a brief time, then disperse.” Sara Speiker (Class of 2011) worked as an intern 
for the Smile Network this summer. Sara helped make this fun event available to us at UST. We were asked to wear a black suit with a white shirt and the organizers provided us with gorilla masks and red ties. This stunt was to help draw attention to a book, It’s a Jungle in There, launched that day. All the proceeds from the sale of this book are being donated to the Smile Network International.
First Book
First Book will be conducting 6 readings this semester. Based on the success of our first fundraiser and a couple of gracious long-term donations, the First Book UST 
MBA board decided to work with 3 schools this year. Each school with which First Book is building a relationship is a member of the YMCA Beacon’s after school program. The schools are: Nellie Stone Johnson Community School, Anne Sullivan Communications Center, and Sheridan Elementary School. Over the course of the 2010/2011 school year, our organization will be providing children with 2000 brand-new books. Join us for the first reading of the semester on October 11th. Contact Paula Wirtz, wirt4719@stthomas.edu.
Article Written By: Paula Wirtz
What: First Book Reading
