Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Jebet Kibogy (second from left) helps 5-year-old Ella Desimone add spices Sunday to a package of food being donated to Haiti.

Jenny Fife coordinated Stop Hunger Now's Roanoke event on Sunday.

How do you prepare meals for more than 285,000 people in a single day?

With organization, about 21 tons of rice and lots and lots of people.

That was the mixture on display Sunday at the Patrick Henry High School cafeteria, where close to 2,000 volunteers -- all toiling under white hairnets -- worked 90-minute shifts packaging food for survivors of the earthquakes in Haiti.

Run by the Roanoke branch of the nonprofit group Stop Hunger Now, the effort to supply the meals is among the largest gestures of its kind in Virginia, and it came together quickly.

"This has all been done in a little over four weeks. That just kind of blows us all away," said coordinator Jenny Fife, a member of St. Elizabeth's Episcopal Church.

Despite the scale and scope of the project, the assembly line that put it all together was relatively simple:

Teams mixed dried rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and flavoring into plastic bags that held six high-protein servings of food.

At various stations around the school's cafeteria, the bags were weighed, adjusted to about 13 ounces, sealed, boxed together, stacked on pallets and loaded out the kitchen door onto a truck. The meals, which can keep for years, will be hauled first to Missouri, then south to Miami to be taken by ship to Haiti.

Work began at 9 a.m. Sunday, and by 1:30 p.m. more than 100,000 bags, or just under half the goal, were ready to roll.

"I kind of got volunteered because I was certified to run a forklift," Matt Garrett of Roanoke said as he steered a loader donated by local construction company Breakell.

Advance Auto Parts, Wiley Development and Lewis-Gale Medical Center were among those that gave financial support, and church members from around the area turned out en masse. Help also came from Boy Scout troops, colleges and universities, members of Patrick Henry's soccer team and students at the Southwest Virginia Ballet Company.

Megan Rafalski of Roanoke showed up with a half-dozen friends from Christ Our Redeemer Community Church on Grandin Road.

"We try to do a service project together at least once a month," Rafalski explained as her group worked and joked around with one another.

"If you're going to do this on a Sunday, you might as well make it interesting," added her friend Matt Reynolds.

"This was great because it was so kid-friendly," said Tracy Jenkins of Shawsville, who came with her husband, Paul, and their three children.

At several points during the day, volunteers waited in line to help. The last meal was packed by about 5 p.m.

One big aspect of the relief project, however, still remains -- paying for it.

The bill for the 41,400 pounds of rice and other ingredients runs about $72,000, and as of Sunday afternoon, the group had raised $60,000, which is about $40,000 more than they had a week ago. They're still selling T-shirts, taking collections and soliciting corporate donations.

"It sounds ridiculous to say we're optimistic, but we are," Fife said.