SOUTH PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Hundreds volunteered for the Million Meals Maine event, preparing meals for starving families worldwide.

Through a partnership between a local volunteer committee and donors and global hunger charity Feed My Starving Children (FMSC), 600 volunteers prepared 100,000 meals on Sunday.

200 members of the White Pine Community Church in Cumberland volunteered. Pastor Joe Campbell said it canceled Sunday service for the event.

According to FMSC, approximately 870 million people are starving worldwide, and 1 in 4 are children under the age of 5.

SCARBOROUGH, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- When signs were erected late last week closing off a small section of Higgins Beach to the public, complaints started rolling in to town and state officials from residents concerned that they'd lost access to that part of the beach forever.

"Higgins is a huge beach, and what we are cordoning off at the tip is actually a small portion of that beach," explained Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Assistant Regional Biologist, Brad Zitske. "It is one of the few beaches in the state that piping plovers have used historically."

Zitske says the state took similar actions last year to protect the endangered birds. He says the move has nothing to do with an incident last year where a plover chick was mauled by a dog on nearby Pine Point Beach.

PORTLAND, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- A woman who has experienced the fallout from a tar sands oil spill is speaking out about the issue in Maine.

Genevieve Long of Mayflower, Ark., joined the "Protect South Portland" organization at a press conference Friday.

Long said she lives a quarter of a mile from the Exxon Mobil Pipeline that ruptured in March 2013. She said her family's health has suffered since the spill.

Environmental groups have been working to keep tar sands from flowing through the Portland-Montreal Pipeline that travels from Canada to Casco Bay.

Long told Maine residents to educate themselves about tar sands Friday.

"No one's going to protect the air you breathe like you do," Long said. "No one's going to protect your aquatic life, your children, like you do. It is your home. You have to fight for what is right for you."