Santa Clarita Valley churches ready to assemble 1 million meals for the poor

Pastor Brandon Beard holds a meal in a trailer containing 35,000 pounds of rice at the Real Life Church in Santa Clarita as part of the SCV Million Meal Marathon. Real Life Church is among 13 Santa Clarita churches that are going to pack and ship 1 million meals this Sunday to send to hungry kids in Haiti and Africa. (Hans Gutknecht/Staff Photographer)

Forget the sermons this Sunday.

For some Santa Clarita churches, the message will be sent through the actions of assembling 1 million meals bound for hungry children around the world.

The Santa Clarita Valley Million Meal Marathon will employ thousands of volunteers at 13 churches to put together dried-food packages that will be shipped overseas on Monday.

"I've traveled all over the world in different countries. I've seen a lot of hurt. A lot of suffering - mostly kids," said the Rev. Brandon Beard of Real Life Church, who is overseeing the event. "They need help."

It was the nondenominational Valencia church that helped recruit a dozen other congregations to work in unison to mix, bag, box, decorate and ship the million meals.

Each dinner will include a sealed, ready-to-cook bag of rice, lentils, spices and chicken powder, which can serve as a base for indigenous ingredients.

Each dinner costs a quarter.

And each will feed 2,739 kids and parents every day for a year in Haiti, the Dominican Republic and impoverished nations across Africa.

"It's in my heart - love - for feeding people who are less fortunate," said Duane Williams, 51, a Real Life churchgoer from Saugus who

will help load four, 40-foot cargo containers.

At the heart of the massive meal ticket, Beard said, is a church-supported Children of Nations missionary group, which has founded self-sustaining orphanages, schools and social services around the world.

Last year, the church packed a container of 16,000 items to help the needy at a Children of Nations site in Uganda. Then on Labor Day, volunteers prepared 100,000 meals for a million-meal trial run.

Rather than attending religious services on Sunday, some 3,000 volunteers will work in three shifts to form meal-making and packing assembly lines.

And that's only at Real Life Church, which has a goal of packing 175,000 pounds of lentils, rice and fixings.

Similar efforts will be made at Living Grace Christian Fellowship, Burning Bush Church, Christ Lutheran Church, the Church on the Way Santa Clarita, Desert Streams Church, Heart of the Canyons Church, Higher Vision Church, NorthPark Community Church, Valencia Hills Community church, Valencia United Methodist Church and the Sanctuary and Royal Oaks Foursquare Church.

The massive charity event cost more than $250,000, all covered by donations. Similar outreach goes to help local and national residents in need.

"I feel it's something I need to do. It's the right thing to do," said volunteer Stephanie Hobbs, 39, of Castaic, who will help sell bowl-and-spoon kits and vitamins to accompany the grub. "We take so much for granted.

"Something as simple as a spoon can mean the world."

Beard said that the marathon effort has unified churches across the Santa Clarita Valley. And that it's vital the Christian message be accompanied by kindness.

"I'm pumped, so pumped," said Beard, the Real Life executive pastor of outreach. "There's no sermon this weekend. This is the sermon, this is the message: To show God's love in a practical way."

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