And about a small task that helps ensure that hundreds of Charlotte-Mecklenburg's most fragile citizens get a nutritious meal that will not hurt them.

The fifth-graders from Carmel Christian School on Wednesday  helped hand-sort the lentils that will be cooked for an upcoming meal. Lentils are high in protein and they help give Friendship Trays recipient a nutritious diet.

But before they can be cooked, they must be sorted and the children took their task seriously. They set out to remove stones, debris, spoiled seeds, green seeds and the oversized ones they dubbed "pumpkins."  On Tuesday, another group of Carmel Christian students worked at Friendship Trays.

It was not all work, of course. Their teachers engaged them in discussions that had them working percentages in their heads ("What percentage of the bags have we done?), and there was even a lesson in the use of personal pronouns.

But enough about words. Let's look at the hands that helped prepare food Wednesday for use at Friendship Trays, your meals-on-wheels program in Charlotte-Mecklenburg – and now THEIR meals-on-wheels program in Charlotte-Mecklenburg.