Students at Colton package beans for Storehouse project

Students are helping package soup mix for low income families.

Storehouse Executive Director Tom Riedner is watching the organization that is dear to his heart grow even more.

Riedner grew up on a farm near Colton and got his first after-college job at Continental Grain and worked in the grain industry for 22 years.

After he became unemployed, he was approached about directing the charitable organization and eagerly took the reigns.

Storehouse was born in 2010 and has already fed thousands of people locally and worldwide.

With a donation of red beans, packages containing two cups of beans along with seasonings donated by Palouse Co-op and preparation suggestions have been distributed. Riedner said that one packet easily feeds six to eight people.

Riedner estimates the cost of each bean packet is between 30 to 50 cents per packet. For a packet of split pea soup which he is developing for distribution this spring, he estimates the cost at 20 to 30 cents per packet.

Riedner also said that Whitman County’s 32.3 percent poverty level from the U.S. Census Bureau shows there is a need.

Students and 4H clubs have packaged the beans for distribution. The most recent group was students from Guardian Angel-St. Boniface Catholic School in Colton.

Lori Becker, principal and teacher at the school, said the students were really excited.

“It’s a great program,” she said. “What Tom and his wife have created is phenomenal.”

Students formed an assembly line to package the soup and every one of them, kindergarten through eighth grade, kept busy for an hour and a half, Becker said.

“We have a nice community in Colton and Uniontown. There’s not a ton of poverty the kids see,” she said.

Riedner shared some facts about Whitman County poverty that made the students realize what they did helped people all over the county.

“I made the soup and the students ate it the next day,” she said. “It was a good awareness for the kids.”

The students made 288 packets.

The Rev. Joseph Sullivan blessed the food and the entire event.

“It was a good experience,” Becker said. “The kids really want to do it again.”

Storehouse is a charity organization that allows farmers to follow their products not only to feed local low income folks but hungry people worldwide as well.

Storehouse representatives contact area farmers, ranchers, businesses and churches to provide donations that Storehouse then distributes.

Donations of peas, lentils, garbanzo beans and barley as well as direct cash contributions are welcome.

Storehouse contracts the cleaning and processing of the donated commodity to be packaged and shipped either locally or internationally. Cash donations are used for purchase of additional commodities, for transportation and administration expenses.

The Storehouse board is made up of Steven Mader as the president, treasurer David Weitz and Roger Miller as secretary.

The non-denominational Christian organization supports local agriculture and is dedicated to finding solutions to reduce hunger locally and around the world.

For more information go to http://www.storehouse.org.