By Craig Murphy

Springfield Times Editor

The timing actually couldn't have been much better.

For the second time, youth from a local church are taking part in a national famine to raise money and collect food for those in need.

More than 50 middle school and high school students from Twin Rivers Baptist Church are expected to participate in this event, which starts Friday afternoon and concludes Saturday evening.

World Vision, a Christian humanitarian organization, has been putting on such events nationally for 19 years.

"Nationally, the big time to do it was last weekend," said David Shade, youth pastor at Twin Rivers. "We had other things going on."

The delay of a week means youth have another reason to help out. Last weekend, a massive 8.8-scale earthquake hit Chile. That followed a 7.0-scale quake that struck Haiti on Jan. 12.

Shade said those two events have helped youth see how important their event suddenly is.

Participants will be doing two community activities on Saturday. The first take place in the morning, from 9:45 to 11:45 a.m.

"The first one is a community cleanup, between the church (at 1660 Mohawk Blvd.) and Willamalane Park at 14th and G. There is tons of little and garbage. We want to help beautify the community. We want the kids to take pride in their community."

From 1:15 to 3:30 p.m., teens will be on street corners with signs asking for food donations, while other teens will be doing door-to-door collecting food for the church's soup kitchen.

For more on this and other news from around the Springfield area, be sure to pick up a copy of the March 5 issue of Springfield Times, available at news racks and stores all around the area. Look under the 'Newspaper Locations' link on this site to find out where. To subscribe to the paper, call 741-7368 or stop by 741 Main St.