Springfield College Hosts Oxfam America Hunger Banquet
By: Graciela Garcia ggarcia4@springfieldcollege.edu
The Oxfam America Hunger Banquet is an annual event hosted by The Y Club at Springfield College to raise awareness for world hunger. Through the event, students are put into different classes of lower, middle and high and really feel the advantages/disadvantages they have over the other group. One of those included people in the high class having the luxury of plentiful food, a plat, utensils, beverage of their choice and dessert. While the lower class ate rice and beans from cups without any spoons or any sort of help from anyone else.
Each person was also given a scenario on who they were, based on a real person, and how their life came about. They also had time for students to gather into small groups and talk about the person they were on their brightly highlighted sheets.
Students hosting the event for Y Club emphasized the importance of why what they do is so important. Throughout the night, a new number was put on the board that went up higher and higher. They touched on it by explaining that the entire time we had been there at the event, about 240 children died from starvation and hunger. It left the room reflective and silent, wondering about those children and how something like food, that we take for granted at times, is the root of the problem for so many children dying around the world.
The event ended with students being able to take any left over food, and after the experience, everyone raced over to the left-overs, not wanting to waste any food after the helpful, guiding learning experience on world hunger.
