Event Highlight: Hunger Banquet @ OSU

Last Wednesday (2/23/11), WWFF-OSU, led by campus rep Molly Morse, raised $275 by participating in the "Hunger Banquet". The event was put on by an Ohio State Honors College service organization - Serving With Honor - and is a yearly event that WWFF-OSU hopes to be a part of on a traditional basis.

"Before the event we thought if we could raise about $80, we would all be happy," said Morse, "When we realized that we had raised $275 we were over the moon since it is only our first year on campus."

At the Hunger Banquet - where all proceeds went to WILL WORK FOR FOOD - WWFF-OSU gave a presentation about their work and the organization which was followed by a screening of the Doctors Without Borders documentary, Starved For Attention. At the end of the event, everyone signed a petition to change the nutritional guidelines for donated food aid. The petition will be presented to world leaders at the G8 summit in May by Doctors Without Borders representatives.

While the Hunger Banquet at Ohio State did a great job of spreading the WILL WORK FOR FOOD message, the "main event" was easily the coolest part of the entire experience. Finding a creative way to express global food inequality, participants were randomly divided into 3 classifications and received a meal based on their classification. The smallest group of participants was in the "Wealthy Class" and was served a 3-course meal of lasagna, salad, and desert. The next group, modestly larger than the wealthy class was the "Middle Class" who had to wait in line to receive one slice of pizza and water. Finally, the largest class (which made up the majority of the participants) was the "Lower Class" who had to wait in line to receive only a small plate of rice. After everyone had their meal, participants were seated at a table that had people from each classification in order to facilitate discussion about class inequalities, especially pertaining to food.

With the advice of their faculty advisor, Julie Humbel, WWFF-OSU's core team of Morse, Megan Bennett, and Adrienne Darah got in contact with Serving With Honor about volunteering at the Hunger Banquet as a work effort. Impressed with WILL WORK FOR FOOD, however, it was decided that the focus of the 2011 Hunger Banquet would be on global hunger and that all of the proceeds benefited WILL WORK FOR FOOD. This certainly got Morse excited about the event.

"The Hunger Banquet was a really great idea and we were just lucky enough to be a part of it. I really hope that we can continue to do something similar in the future to benefit WILL WORK FOR FOOD because the participants really seemed to respond well to the discussion about global food inequality and child malnutrition."

I encourage you to learn more about world hunger and the work Doctors Without Borders does. And while your at it, if you are interested in finding a group that is as involved with spreading these important messages like the girls at Ohio State are, don't hesitate; get involved today!

If you want to know every time WILL WORK FOR FOOD posts something new to our blog, email willworkforfoodblog@gmail.com with the subject line "Sign me up."