NATCHEZ — Cathedral Key Club members and, hopefully, volunteers from the community will package more than 80,000 bags of food in April that will be distributed to local food banks, shelters and churches.

Cathedral teachers and Key Club advisors Jean Benoit and Cheryl Hunt began planning a meal-pack event for Natchez after they returned from a Key Club convention in Washington, D.C., where a similar event was hosted.

The event challenged Key Club members from across the country who gathered for the convention to package a million bags through the non-profit organization, Kids Against Hunger.

The meals include four readily available and dry ingredients that are easy to package, maintain for long periods and require only boiling with water to prepare.

“It was amazing to see all these people gathered together and just the number of meals you could put together,” Benoit said. “We were hosting our district convention this year in Natchez, and we just thought we could definitely use something like that here.”

While in Washington, the Cathedral teachers also learned about grants available that could be used to purchase more food to package.

The teachers applied for a $10,000 grant through Kiwanis International Foundation and began their own fund-raising efforts just in case.

“We’ve been on pins and needles since we applied in November waiting to hear back,” Hunt said. “We were hoping for that, but we weren’t expecting to get it.”

The teachers and students managed to raise $5,000 on their own and are continuing fundraising efforts even after getting news last week that they will receive the full $10,000 grant they requested.

“I have to say, I was really getting a little nervous about this,” Benoit said, laughing. “The club has done a great job fundraising so far, but this is going to help so much.

“It was starting to keep me up at night.”

Benoit’s daughter, Rachel, who is a senior at the school and serves as Key Club International vice president, said the grants are extremely competitive.

“There were 196 applications total,” Rachel said. “And this is the first time Key Club is doing Kids Against Hunger in Natchez, so it’s a pretty new thing.”

The meal-packing event will be from noon to 5 p.m. April 4 at the Natchez Grand Hotel.

While Key Club members from Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee will be participating as part of the district conference, Benoit said she hopes the community also gets involved.

“We would love all the help we can get,” she said. “All of this food is going to stay in our area, so we would love to see people come out and help us give back to the community.”

Benoit said the group had the option of deciding where to send the meals once they are packed and ready to ship.

An option to send meals overseas was available, but Benoit said they opted to deliver the meals locally to any organization ready and willing to accept.

“When we set all this up, we didn’t know how many we were going to be able to pack initially, but this has gone over what we were thinking,” Benoit said. “Any organization that is in need of food can let us know to see about receiving the food.”

For more information on the project, to get involved or to request food delivery, call Cathedral School at 601-442-2531, Rachel at 601-597-6797 or email keyclubrachel@gmail.com.