While many nurses make a lasting impact in healthcare settings every day, several Galen College of Nursing students recently extended that impact beyond the bedside and into the global community. Through a service-focused initiative, students from Galen’s Dallas campus joined HCA Healthcare and other community leaders to host a Feed My Starving Children event.

The nonprofit organization is dedicated to providing nutritious meals to children facing food insecurity around the world. For the students, the event was more than an opportunity to volunteer. As Dr. Melynda Hutchings, dean of the Dallas campus, explained, it also reflected the values Galen strives to instill in its students by providing a meaningful lesson in compassion and service.

“To see the look on the students’ faces when they were told exactly how many nutritious meals they were able to provide to children in need in such a short amount of time was incredible,” Hutchings said.

In just two hours, students packed 104 boxes of food for donation. Those boxes will provide 22,464 meals to children in need, enough to feed 61 children one meal a day for an entire year. The accomplishment demonstrated how a relatively small investment of time can create a significant and lasting impact for families facing hunger.

“The students were able to stand side by side with our HCA partners, as well as people they had never met before, and work together to create meals for communities in need of nutritious, well-balanced food,” Hutchings said.

By participating in Feed My Starving Children, students witnessed firsthand how teamwork, generosity, and a shared commitment to helping others can make a difference far beyond their local community. The event not only provided thousands of meals to children around the world but also reinforced the spirit of service that lies at the heart of the nursing profession.