A plastic, sealed bag filled with a small portion of rice, a few grams of soy, a tiny mix of dehydrated vegetables, and a scoop of powder mixed with 11 vitamins can feed an entire family for a day.

"All you need is water and fire and you can make a meal to feed six people," said Topher Philgreen with Youthfront's Something to Eat. 

The package of ingredients is about the size of a normal Bible, and the idea for the package came from the scriptural insight of the Holy Word. 

Youthfront, based in the Kansas City, Missouri, area, operates Christian youth camps. The idea to package food to feed the hungry grew from a spiritual growth experience at a camp two summers ago.

Youth learned about hunger, sacrifice, and responsibility by putting together small meal packages to feed the hungry.

"Kids learn by using their hands," Philgreen said. "It's about spiritual formation."

Youthfront planned to keep the food-packaging project as part of its camp's spiritual activities.

"Six months later Haiti happened, and now it's taken on a life of its own," Philgreen said. 

Youthfront formed Something to Eat and shipped more than 250,000 meals to orphanages after an earthquake struck the small Caribbean country. Now Something to Eat has its eye on Swaziland, Africa.

And students at NYC 2011 - A World Unbroken will help the cause. 

Mothers in the U.S. told their children for years not to waste food because starving children in China or Africa or another country don't have enough to eat. 

The Something to Eat project highlights that philosophy - We should be thankful for what we have and we should use what we have to feed the hungry, Philgreen said. 

"It brings about change, physically and spiritually, which is what Jesus did," he said. 

After a group orientation session, every student at NYC donned a hairnet or cap and worked with a team to package the food. Each student on the team was responsible for a particular task. One student measured the rice, another the soy, another the vitamin mix, and another the dehydrated vegetables. The remaining students made sure the plastic bag was filled correctly and then heat-sealed it. 

The package was loaded into a box - each team filled one box with 36 packages of food. The process took about 15 minutes.

Each meal costs 20 cents and has a shelf life of three years.

"We want them to realize that they can give up McDonald's for lunch and feed an entire family for a week," Philgreen said.

Youthfront hopes the Something to Eat project will change the way NYC students think - bring about a spiritual awareness of meeting people's needs both at home and around the world.

The project started Thursday, and organizers plan for students to package 285,000 meals for Swaziland by Saturday. Volunteers will load the boxes of meals onto a container that will ship Saturday afternoon.

"We want them to consider what they could give up to package meals in the next three days," Philgreen said.

Nazarene Compassionate Ministries sponsored the meals for the container to Swaziland, however, organizers prayed that God would lead students to spend some of their own money to make extra meals while at NYC. And it appears those prayers were answered. 

Several students signed up to buy and package meals. 

North Carolina District students wanted to perform another service project this week on Saturday.

"While planning another project, the students mentioned how much satisfaction they got out of helping with the Something to Eat project," said Carol Kinder, youth co-coordinator for the district. "The group asked if they could take the money they would normally spend for a 'gremlin feeding' (midnight snack) and put that money, nearly $100 for the group, toward more bags of food to send to Africa. It was unanimous."

The project, however, won't stop with Swaziland. Students will continue to package meals through Saturday, and any amount over the goal will go to food pantries in the greater Louisville area.

As of Friday morning, there were already more than 2,000 extra meals made.

For more stories from NYC, see the NCN News NYC 2011 section by clicking here. 

For more information on Something to Eat, click here.