Volunteers and students from UNC-Chapel Hill, UNC-Wilmington, Duke University, NC Central University and Peace College packaged 481,260 meals on the final day of University Million Meal Week 2009, bringing the UMMW 2009 total to 1,031,776 and exceeding last year’s total by 21,402.

Last week, on the first day of UMMW 2009, volunteers and students from NC State University, East Carolina University, and Meredith College packaged 550,516 meals.

Meals packaged during UMMW 2009 will be used to feed school children in some of the world’s most impoverished areas of Haiti, Kenya and Nicaragua. As the UNC-CH event ended, a truck loaded with the life-saving meals headed to Feed the Hungry in Kenya.

“It is a monumental effort to package this many meals in such a short time. Ample resources exist to win the war against hunger. We only need the human will to make it happen. The University Million Meals Week demonstrates it can,” said Ray Buchanan, president and founder of Stop Hunger Now.