Alicia Huang (in Duke hat) joins N.C. Central students Kristen Terrell, Makeda McCray, Kartina Muhtar, Brittany Fuller and Brian Horne in preparing bags of dried food. Photo credit: Megan Morr

Durham, NC - When the gong rang for the first time Wednesday, there was some applause. When it sounded the second time three minutes later, the cheers grew louder. And when just two minutes later the gong sounded again, the excitement grew even more.

Each sound of the gong represented 1,000 meals for people in Haiti, Bolivia, Ghana and Guatemala. It was part of the Million Meals Service, a project involving more than 700 students and staff members from Duke and N.C. Central University, who came together for eight hours to mix dried lentils and rice to create healthy, high-protein meals. They didn't stop until the gong rang more than 150 times.

The project was part of an effort of the Durham Rotary Club to package more than 1 million meals for starving people and for relief efforts in the four countries. While sponsored by area Rotary clubs and the Raleigh-based non-profit Stop Hunger Now, Wednesday's event was student-driven, said Bijoy Sahoo, dean of the NCCU business school.

"This is an opportunity for the students to showcase that they are about solving problems," said Sahoo, who is also a member of the Durham Rotary Club. "It's appropriate that this happen during Martin Luther King Jr. Week. The students are carrying on Dr. King's dream by joining hands and working together in a service project to fight hunger."

The project surpassed by some 2,000 meals a similar effort in 2006 held at N.C. State University. Since last July, the project has already compiled more than 515,000 meals. These will be sent to Rotary Clubs in the four countries. Most will be distributed to hungry people through school food programs and other projects; others will be used in disaster relief projects.

The Duke and NCCU volunteers worked in three shifts from 2 to 10 p.m. Wednesday in NCCU's LeRoy T. Walker Physical Education Complex. Groups of six workers stood around 20 funnels for mixing the rice, lentils, soy solids and chicken flavoring. Other volunteers then took the bags to a second station for weighing and sealing.

Duke student Alicia Huang joined five NCCU students around one funnel during the first shift. As hip-hop music played on the gym sound system, the six team members worked quickly together to add the ingredients and fill their bags. Huang said what interested her was how easy it was to make a dent in world hunger, noting that each meal costs only about 20 cents.

"This is very simple to do," she said.

An NCCU teammate, Makeda McCray, agreed. "It's hard to believe that each bag holds six meals when you add hot water. It makes you realize how simple it is to help hungry people."

At a second table, a group of Duke law students worked to label the boxes that would ultimately contain the meals during shipping. Law student Amy Curry said it was an easy decision for her to take the afternoon off to help with the project.

"I do a lot of public interest work, but I've never worked with a hunger project before," she said. "So when I heard about this event, I decided to help out."

Also on hand were Duke President Richard H. Brodhead and NCCU Chancellor James Ammons. Ammons praised the volunteers for "sending a strong signal that students of today are service-minded."

Brodhead encouraged the students to use their education to engage themselves in the key issues of our time, both at home and around the world.

"This week, which began with MLK Day, reminds us all of the many human needs in the world and that it is within the power of all of us to do something about it," Brodhead said.