SAN DIEGO — “Never did I ever think that it would be this big.”
Deacon Jim Scull was referring to the Million Meal Event, which he and a small team of deacons from the Diocese of San Diego launched five years ago. At the inaugural event, volunteers packed 1 million nutritious meals to distribute to impoverished families across the border in Tijuana and in Africa.
The deacons held the fifth edition of the Million Meal Event over the June 13 and 14 weekend, again at Cathedral Catholic High School. This year, around 5,100 volunteers doubled the number of meals they packed, to 2 million.
The event is a project of the diocese’s permanent deacons to serve the most vulnerable. They recruit volunteers at their parishes and raise funds to cover the event’s costs, which this year totaled about $600,000.
They collaborate with a Christ-centered nonprofit organization, Kids Around the World, which buys the bulk ingredients and distributes a portion of the meals overseas to the communities they serve. This year’s Million Meal Event was the largest of the nearly 200 packing events the agency will support in 2026.
Two years ago, the deacons joined forces with Catholic Charities, also part of
Read more...
