Students get a taste of hunger
Hunger banquet raises awareness of poverty
by Tyler Buckentine
Issue date: 11/20/08
Section: Campus News
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"I didn't know Mankato had its own [poverty] issues," Yoder said. "I was like, 'it's a college town filled with college students,' but actually having homeless and that the food shelves need more help was really surprising to me."
Yoder said he was 'roped' by his community advisor in Crawford into attending Wednesday's Hunger Banquet at Minnesota State, which was presented by Campus Kitchen in the Centennial Student Union Ballroom.
The event was held to raise awareness about hunger and poverty. It seemed to work, as it opened Yoder's eyes to a problem often overlooked by MSU students and the community.
"I'm really glad I came," said Yoder, a junior. "It's really eye-opening and it gave me a real sense of what is going on and that we should help and we can help."
Yoder and around 80 other students and community members participated in the banquet, where they were randomly separated into three socioeconomic classes.
Each group portrayed a different financial status in the world, proportional to international figures.
"It's more or less an experience of what it's like worldwide," said Campus Kitchen Program Director Samantha Eckerson.
Eckerson founded Campus Kitchen in 2005 and has put on two hunger banquets since then, the first one in 2006.
"Everyone had such a wonderful eye-opening experience that we had some calls from people that wanted to do it again," Eckerson said.
More than half the people participating represented homeless or lower class people worldwide. This group sat on the ballroom floor amid crumpled newspaper and cardboard boxes that represented poverty. They were served a half-cup of rice and water, with the food colored to appear dirty.
The middle class - 35 percent of the world - ate a cup of rice, a scoop of beans and a glass of water at long tables while the other 15 percent - representing the world's high class - were served a four-course meal at round dinner tables.
But Eckerson said the event was more than just a banquet.
An education session followed to show what people can to do help the hunger problem on a local, national and worldwide scale.
In Mankato, more than 19 percent of people are hungry and in need of food assistance, something of which few people are aware. Most of those people are under the age of 18.
"We have a large need in our community and people may not see that," Eckerson said. "They're not all holding signs or don't look like the stereotypical homeless person, but they are here and it's a huge problem."
Campus Kitchen has partnered with Mankato's high schools to do to different fundraisers and food drives.
"[These events] gives a very visual representation of what's actually going on in the world today," Yoder said.
Tyler Buckentine is the Reporter managing editor
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