SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (KELO) – Viking Days are underway this week at Augustana University. While it’s a week to celebrate, students are also giving back.

Augustana students are spending the day preparing meals for families around the world and even right here in the community.

To celebrate Viking Days, students are dedicating Tuesday to service. The meals packed are for Kids Against Hunger.

“Service is one of our core values at Augustana so we provide a service project that students can come stop by, they can work for an hour, they can work for a half hour, whatever time works in their class schedules,” Viking Days co-chair, Kellie Geigle said.

Students, staff, faculty, and alumni are all invited to participate.

Hailey Mann is volunteering. She’s a student and part of the National Student Speech Language Hearing Association.

“It’s super fun to do, you meet a lot of great people from other clubs as well and it’s a blast to do in the mornings,” student, Hailey Mann said. “We are mixing together oats, different proteins, apples, cinnamon sugar, all together in a bag, and then it’s ready for them to use in a microwave.”

Last year during the day of service they were able to pack 40,000 meals. They’re hoping to do the same this year.

“We had a group come in at 9 to help with set up because it’s a lot of bringing the big bags in and it’s a lot for our committee to do on our own so we had a group come in at 9 and they got done in 20 minutes, so we were able to start the packing earlier than we thought,” Geigle said.

“Augustana is a tight community and we all are a great group of people and it’s nice to have all these people together to make this happen,” Mann said.

Organizers with Kids Against Hunger say these meals will be going to Feeding South Dakota. If you’d like to volunteer with the nonprofit, click here.