To culminate a month-long initiative to raise awareness of global hunger, the Center for Service, Spirituality and Social Justice (CSSS) will host the Hunger Banquet, a simulation of global eating patterns, on Friday, Nov. 20 at 6 p.m. in Stern Great Room.

The Hunger Banquet will be set up as a simulation of how the world realistically eats. According to Michelle Zhang ’18, a student community service leader working on the project, the attendees will be divided into three groups upon arrival. The groups will accurately represent proportions of the world’s population that make up the upper class, middle class and lower class. Each group will be fed differently, to depict the way that each class eats.

The event will also feature presentations from invited speakers about world hunger issues. The speakers will also include one or more people who have struggled with hunger first-hand, a professor working with global education and the founder of Project SHARE, a local organization that provides food to families in need.

Rebecca Feldman ’15, community service coordinator with CSSS, was involved in organizing the banquet. Feldman explained that this banquet is part of CSSS’s initiative to put together larger service projects for the whole community in addition to the smaller service events that occur regularly. According to Feldman, the center’s goal for this semester is to “address social justice” with the issue of world hunger, and to avoid “thoughtless service” by instead creating meaningful experiences for the community.

Carol Fadalla ’18, a community service projects leader, described why Dickinson students should attend the Hunger Banquet.

“It is not everyday that you think about hunger,” Fadalla explained.  “The banquet will give a first-hand experience about reality, and the unequal distribution of food.”

We Introduce Nations at Dickinson (WIND) is co-sponsoring this event as part of their International Education Week.

In addition to the Hunger Banquet, this November CSSS has already hosted a meal-packaging event to help feed those struggling with hunger. They are also hoping to get students, especially first-years, involved in volunteering at Project SHARE’s Distribution Day on Nov. 19.

Tickets for the Hunger Banquet are $5 and can be purchased online, at Landis House or in the HUB basement. All funds raised through ticket sales will benefit international non-profit Stop Hunger Now, an organization that coordinates food distribution to impoverished and crisis-stricken areas across the world.