In the athletic realm, Westside struggled against rival Creighton Prep this school year. But Thursday, April 9, seniors Max Slosburg, Tyler Schneiderman and Carter Ruff will be leading Westside students in an effort to beat the Junior Jays in something other than sports: packing meals for Kids Against Hunger, an Omaha-headquartered nonprofit organization that fights hunger in the United States and abroad.

That Thursday, which is a 10 a.m. late start day because of junior testing, the two seniors are aiming to lead 170 Westside students in packing 50,000 meals from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. using the Kids Against Hunger meal-packing process.

Of course, the event is being held for reasons other than outdoing a rival; in fact, Creighton Prep has served as a model for the event. Slosburg and Schneiderman helped run a similar event at a Creighton Prep senior retreat last year, and decided to bring a packing event to Westside.

“That was the first school event that we saw, so after we saw how possible it was to do a school-wide event, we took that idea and decided to make it bigger,” Slosburg said. “Creighton Prep does a 25,000-meal event… so we decided to kind of one up them and do a 50,000-meal event.”

Schneiderman and Slosburg, who helped start the Kids Against Hunger Club at Westside in 2011, have been planning the packing event along with Ruff since the beginning of this school year when, in their senior project classes, they split responsibilities into two parts: fundraising and event planning. Slosburg focused on fundraising as his senior project, and Schneiderman took charge of planning the actual event for his.

From there, the pair worked with Westside administrators to get the packing event, a space and a date to carry it out approved. The April 9 date as well as the Main Gym as the location were finalized in December. Now, with two weeks remaining before the event, which kicks off a much bigger Kids Against Hunger initiative called the Million Meal March, the two have nearly met their fundraising goal and filled 110 of the 170 needed volunteer spots.

“Right now, we’re focused on setting up for the actual event,” Slosburg said.

On the day of the packing event, volunteers will be greeted by 17 rows of tables in the Main Gym. On those tables will be boxes of the ingredients and tools required to pack a meal.

“There’s a specific process that the food goes into, so you have to set up the tables the correct way,” Schneiderman said.

Now, they need your help to pull off the biggest Kids Against Hunger packing event Westside has hosted (typically, Westside has seen 10- to 15-person events, according to Slosburg).

“We have funding to pack 50,000 meals, and the problem that comes with that is we have a very short period of time to pack it, so we need a lot of volunteers to do it,” Slosburg said.

If you’re interested in volunteering, contact Slosburg or Schneiderman via email.

The meals from the event will go to the Heart Ministry Center in Omaha and to the Omaha Kids Against Hunger reserve.

Check back Friday, April 10, for more coverage of the Kids Against Hunger Club packing event.