MOOSIC, Pa. -- One of the largest employers in Lackawanna County took a break from work on Thursday to help feed needy families.
Employees at Cigna, a health care company, prepared more than 100,00 meals.
Cigna employees who usually spend their workday behind a desk and on the phone instead donned hairnets and got to work making jambalaya. The rice, lentils, and dried vegetables went into bags – 125,000 of them -- before the end of the workday.
"What you're seeing here today is one of our hunger projects. We're partnering with Cigna today to package 125,000 meals. So, each and every one of these meals will be staying local in the community of Scranton to help impact families right here at home, which is super awesome," said Jessica Hecht of Feeding Children Everywhere.
Cigna teamed up with the national charity "Feeding Children Everywhere" but all the meals will go to food pantries in Lackawanna and Luzerne Counties.
Each bag of jambalaya can feed six people.
"You'd be surprised how many Americans are battling with hunger every day. This really goes out to help them extend the resources that they have to be able to feed their families," said Nadia Samuel of Feeding Children Everywhere.
This is part of a much larger effort. Seven other Cigna locations are doing the same thing and all together, they'll package one million meals.
"It's awesome that they're doing one million meals over those eight different locations because we're able to make an impact across the entire United States," Hecht said.
650 Cigna employees worked to get it all packaged in six different shifts. It was work, but it doesn't mean you can't have a little fun with it.
"Unfortunately, my table didn't come in first, so I'm going to try and up our game a little bit after we're done here," said Cigna vice president of operations Ed Laclair.
Sure beats a day behind a desk.