Mealtime will be all day on Thursday at Knoxville High School, as students join members of the community to pre-pack meals for distribution to persons in need.

The Knoxville FFA is holding its second Meals from the Heartland food packing event; it will run all day long in the high school gym, with students and other volunteers packing meals on behalf of the Des Moines-based charity.

Mickayla McGill from the Knoxville FFA chapter tells KNIA/KRLS News they want to get as many students as possible involved in the event.

“The entire high school will go through Meals from the Heartland; we’ll split them up by grade, and the freshmen will come first. And throughout the day we’ll work in the sophomores and the juniors and then the seniors,” Mickayla says.

“We’re going to start off the day with training the freshmen on how to package meals and how everything needs to be set up for the day, and then we’ll continue to work through the day. And we hope that our businesses and sponsors will join us at various times throughout the day.”

The FFA says there were a few bumps along the way last year when they did this for the first time; the goal this year is to make the process more efficient.

Anyone wishing to help out is invited to drop by the high school during the day and pitch in.