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The Albemarle Rotary Club is doing its part to help those around the world suffering from hunger.

For the second year in a row, the group will host a Rise Against Hunger food packaging event from 10 a.m. until noon Saturday at the Stanly Family YMCA gymnasium. The goal is to package more than 20,000 meals, which will then be sent to impoverished people around the world. Last year, 20,088 meals were packaged and sent to Nicaragua.

Rise Against Hunger is an international hunger relief organization that distributes food and aid to the world’s most vulnerable, mobilizing the necessary resources to end hunger by 2030, according to its website. Since the organization was created in 1998, it has packaged more than 532 million meals that have been sent to 78 countries.

Rise Against Hunger meals are dehydrated, high in protein and nutritious. They contain four ingredients – long grain white rice, texturized soy protein, dehydrated vegetable blend and a small bag of vitamin powder, according to the group’s website.

Dr. Angela Mills, international service chair for the Albemarle Rotary Club, helped to organize the event.

She said more than 90 volunteers have agreed to help with the event.

Besides helping to prepare the meals, Mills said volunteers are needed to help set up for the event beginning at 8:30 a.m. and to help clean up at noon.

More than 40 percent of Rise Against Hunger’s meals are distributed to school feeding programs around the world, Mills said. Those meals encourage school attendance and help put children and their families on a path out of poverty.

“Sometimes this is the only meal those kids get during the day,” Mills said.

YMCA CEO George Crooker, who is a member of the rotary club, is ready for the event.

“We plan on packing the gym with rotary club members and volunteers and doing what we all should be doing in this world, which is taking care of those people who can’t take care of themselves,” he said.

To help with the event, email Mills at millsa1974@yahoo.com or sign up at http://events.riseagainsthunger.org/AlbemarleRotary2020. Even if people can’t work the event, they can donate by going on the webpage. The rotary club is trying to raise $6,829, which is how much the food supplies cost.