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Celebrating 50 Years With 50,000 Meals: How BD Commemorated Its Research Triangle Park Office’s Anniversary

on  October 19, 2022

October is a big month for BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company), a longtime partner of Rise Against Hunger. In addition to being the company’s 125th anniversary, this month also marks the 50th anniversary of BD Technologies and Innovation (BDTI) at Research Triangle Park (RTP) in North Carolina. To celebrate BDTI at RTP’s 50th year, BD wanted to give back in a big way — by packaging 50,000 meals with Rise Against Hunger! “What better way to celebrate our anniversary than to pack 50,000 meals for 50 years,” said John Mikszta, Vice President, R&D at BDTI at RTP. 

BD has joined us on the mission to end hunger since 2013. In less than 10 years, BD has supported our work in several ways, including engaging their employees in offices across the country to package over 1 million meals for the people Rise Against Hunger serves. 

BDTI at RTP has significantly contributed to that larger milestone by packaging 20,000 meals almost every year since 2016. So, they decided to set a challenging, impactful goal of hosting a 50,000-meal packaging event to celebrate the office’s anniversary! On Friday, October 7, around 125 BD employees came together over the course of three shifts to take part in the packaging. 

Betty Stewart, HR Manager, Enterprise R&D Centers, said the staff at BDTI at RTP “have a heart for volunteerism in our community, our nation and around the world,” and this was obvious at the event! Over the course of three shifts, employees packaged rice, soy, dehydrated vegetables and micronutrient packets into bags. The room was abuzz with conversation (and sometimes singing, like when “Sweet Caroline” played over the speakers) and excitement as the staff worked with their colleagues to package the meal ingredients into bags. Jamie Cone, Senior Engineer at BD, said her favorite part was “meeting new people in the building and catching up with people.” 

Jamie, along with several other staff members, also expressed that it was important to know they were helping people. According to Monica Council-Miles, Manager, Social Investing at BD, “service efforts with Rise Against Hunger are a great example of BD associates bringing to life our environmental, social and governance (ESG) commitment to improving Community Health, through local acts of volunteerism that have a global impact.” 

The 50,000 meals packaged by BDTI at RTP will go on to have a big impact, nourishing children and families affected by food insecurity around the world. And the meal packaging event was just one of BD’s commitments to giving back and volunteerism this October! In addition to packaging 50,000 meals, BD also sponsored the Chef Showdown, our virtual cooking competition in honor of World Food Day. We’re so grateful for their support in the fight to end global hunger!

Want to learn more about our meal packaging program? You can find out how to host your own event  – like BD did — here!    

Interested in learning more?
Our team is ready to help!

To find out more about meal packaging and how to organize your own event, fill out the form and a Rise Against Hunger team member will contact you to start planning. If you’ve connected with our team or filled out this form previously, no need to submit it again. A Rise Against Hunger team member will be in touch soon!
 

Perfect for all kinds of organizations:

  • Corporations
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  • Communities of Faith
  • Colleges & Universities

About the Author

Hannah Payne is the Public Relations & Communications Manager at Rise Against Hunger. She facilitates communication between Rise Against Hunger and the media.

More Posts by Hannah Payne

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.