When the Million Dollar Round Table holds its annual meeting in Vancouver June 13–17, the MDRT Foundation will host its largest-ever volunteer event—the Million Meal Challenge—in which MDRT members hope to package one million meals for families in need around the world.

MDRT is an association of 31,500 financial professionals from 464 companies worldwide. Membership is based on meeting certain levels of production as measured by commissions earned or premiums paid. The MDRT Annual Meeting typically attracts 4,000 attendees, who hear more than 100 speakers over the four days of the conference.

The MDRT Foundation held a kickoff event at MDRT headquarters in Park Ridge, Ill., earlier this year, packaging more than 10,000 meals for the people of Haiti.

At the annual meeting, members will sign up to work in two-hour shifts, filling plastic pouches with rice, soy nuggets, dehydrated vegetable mix, and a vitamin tablet. They will then seal and package the pouches in boxes, which will be sent to people in Haiti, India, Jamaica, Nicaragua, the Philippines, and Tanzania. The project is being run with the help of two nonprofit organizations, Kids Against Hunger and Kids Around the World.

Kids Against Hunger, based in New Hope, Minn., is dedicated to feeding children and families suffering from severe malnutrition worldwide. KAH provides rice-based meals at food packaging satellites throughout the United States and through partnerships with humanitarian organizations around the globe. Kids Around the World is based in Rockford, Ill., and is an official KAH packaging and distribution satellite.

The MDRT Foundation was created in 1959 to provide MDRT members with a means to give back to their communities. Since its inception, the MDRT Foundation has donated more than $26 million to charitable organizations serving people in 67 countries and throughout the United States. Starting in 2003, thanks to the Million Dollar Promise Appeal, the MDRT Foundation has awarded at least $1 million in grants per year. The majority of these funds were raised by MDRT members from MDRT members.