Charity: Not Eating For A Cause

Sounds peculiar at first.

You attend a charity banquet with a friend. Maybe you paid to get in. Maybe you didn’t. Your friend gets a full meal at a linen-clothed table while you sit on the floor and share a bowl of rice with strangers.

Not fair?

That’s the point.

It’s called a hunger banquet. And this symbolic event has become an increasingly popular way to educate people about world hunger — and often solicit donations.

The concept was originally conceived by aid and development organization Oxfam. Each year, especially during the giving yet gluttonous holiday season, Oxfam says the number of hunger banquets across the U.S. has grown dramatically.

You may not be satisfied.

Unlike wedding receptions, potluck dinners or other communal feasting opportunities, the goal of a hunger banquet is not to provide participants with a free meal. Instead, hunger banquets aim to offer an experiential glimpse at the statistics of world hunger and poverty.

“Let’s say you invite 100 people,” says Delaney. “As the people enter the room, they receive one of three different tickets. Fifteen of those people receive a full-course meal, sit at a table with nice linens, crystal, flowers, the works. Twenty-five of those people typically sit in a chair. They don’t have a table. They receive a simple meal of rice and beans. And 60 of those people will sit on the floor and share a communal bowl of rice.”

Depending on where you sit and what you eat, a speaker will inform you what role you play in world hunger, whether you’re a starving mother from Mozambique or a Guatemalan coffee farmer who’s just getting by. At the end of the meal, participants are often asked to share their personal experiences.

Read entire West Central Tribune.

I think this a great idea, and an effective way to spread information about hunger. Although hunger statistics shock most people, statistics still lack the emotional realism that an experience such as a “hunger banquet” delivers. The blatant unfairness of such an experiment shows participants the blatant unfairness of world hunger and poverty. Often times people born with opportunity and luxury mistake poverty and hunger as a self-induced phenomenon. No offense to such people; how can one imagine the trap of poverty and inopportunity when one has always had food and opportunity. Many children grow up and often die in hunger and poverty. Even in the U.S. 50% of children born into poverty remain in poverty for the rest of their lives. A “hunger banquet” demonstrates such unfairness to participants.

What do you think?