RALEIGH, N.C. — Martin Luther King Jr. Day is recognized as a national day of service.

Nonprofits across the state and country hosted volunteer opportunities for people to come together and help others. One of those organizations was Rise Against Hunger, an international hunger relief nonprofit that was started in Raleigh.

“As a person of faith, it's important for me to make sure that we work to make everybody's lives better all over the world,” Darron Stover, the regional philanthropy manager for Rise Against Hunger, said.“As a person of faith, it's important for me to make sure that we work to make everybody's lives better all over the world,” Darron Stover, the regional philanthropy manager for Rise Against Hunger, said.

Stover says the bags of food they package are helping to end world hunger.

“The bags are filled with four ingredients: rice, soy protein, vegetables and a vitamin pack,” Stover said. “The meals that we package are generally international, are shipped internationally. They can go to anywhere like Haiti, Dominican Republic, to Central America, to places in Africa, Southeast Asia.”

The organization is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and Stover has worked for the nonprofit for almost a decade.

“I actually was able to come to the first-ever packaging event we did in 2005 with my church. I fell in love with the organization, with the mission, with the meal packaging events, you know, seeing how fun it was. So I started volunteering and becoming a part of it, kind of unofficially, and now I've been an employee for nine years,” Stover said.

They buy food in bulk then volunteers help pack the individual bags.

“They're deposited basically through a funnel into the bag. Then they're weighed, sealed up and boxed up right through the event and brought in here to be shipped out,” Stover said.

The food is often distributed to orphanages, health clinics and schools. Stover says what’s inside the bags really adds up.

“There are six servings per bag. In each box, there's basically 216 meals, 216 servings. That's about enough to feed one child for a year at school in a place like Haiti,” Stover said.

They haven’t had a volunteer event on MLK Day since before the pandemic so Stover says he’s eager to see the community come together.

“We're so excited to be back this year working again with about 1,300 volunteers. This year we're going to package 240,000 meals all over Sunday and Monday time period,” Stover said.

They’re hoping to get their meal packing numbers back to pre-pandemic levels, when they packed more than 4 million meals just here at their Raleigh location.

“We need to continue to grow the movement. That's one of the things that we're focused on, is continuing to grow the movement because there's still too much hunger out in the world,” Stover said.

If you missed the opportunity to volunteer on MLK Day, there are other ways to help Rise Against Hunger throughout the year. In celebration of their 25th anniversary, Rise Against Hunger is planning a major volunteer event later in the year.

You can learn more about the organization by visiting Rise Against Hunger’s website.