Edesia needs a little help ending hunger

On Valentine's Day, a bunch of volunteers from the NK Democratic Town Committee spent the evening helping out at Edesia, a North Kingstown-based non-profit manufacturer of ready-to-use foods used all over the world to treat and prevent malnutrition.

Edesia ships their "Plumpynut" product and its friends to dozens of different places experiencing famine and instability. It's their core business, and they have an amazing assembly line with hoppers filled with dry materials and vats of vegetable oil to make the stuff and robots set up to pack it and ship it.

In partnership with Chobani, Edesia is moving into the domestic market with some snack food designed to give little kids small exposure to peanuts as a way to prevent the development of nut allergies.

Unfortunately for them, the demand for the new product has gone up faster than they can expand their production line, so they have turned to the community to ask for volunteers to help pack the goods for a little while, until the new production line is kitted out. So a bunch of us were out there on Monday night, doing our best imitations of the packing robots on the other line. (Findings: We are friendlier, but not as fast.)

The company's need will continue for a little while. It was a fun evening, and eye-opening and we will be back. If you have some time to spare, want to help address child hunger and malnutrition, and want to see what a cool factory is like, find the details by clicking here.

(we are smiling, really)