It's Ash Wednesday.  But tonight, a church in North East is taking a different approach in celebrating the start of Lent.

After celebrating Mass, members of Park United Methodist Church helped prepare food packages for the organization Stop Hunger Now.  It's a non-profit that helps distribute meals around the world.

Over the past several weeks, the congregation raised $7,500, which will pay for 30,000 meals.  Each one, has a mixture of rice, soy bean, dried vegetables and vitamins.

Volunteers say helping prepare each package is their way of giving back.

"It's really just a six week period in which we decided to do this and put it together," said Rick King of Park United Methodist Church.  "So it's awesome to be a part of."

The food will be shipped to a warehouse in Philadelphia where it will then be distributed around the world.