November 19, 2009: Our Town – OWU

President Rock Jones serves bowls of rice to 2008 Hunger Banquet participants who were randomly selected to represent the world’s poorest citizens. Sponsored by ProgressOWU, the 2009 Hunger Banquet will be held December 3.

Photo by Shade Fakunle ’10

Food for Thought
OWU’s annual Hunger Banquet to illustrate problem of global famine

As many of us prepare to indulge in turkey with all the trimmings next week, the issue of global hunger eats away at Mary Slebodnik’s peace of mind.

Slebodnik ’12, a creative writing and journalism double major from Utica, Ohio, is working with ProgressOWU to organize this year’s OWU Hunger Banquet. The event helps to raise awareness about local, national, and international poverty and hunger.

“This event is important because many Ohio Wesleyan students come from financially stable backgrounds, and it is easy to forget the struggle some people in the U.S. and developing countries go through to survive each day,” Slebodnik says.

“This is an especially fitting message for the beginning of December, as the holidays are coming up with their spirit of giving,” she continues. “I hope students and members of the OWU and Delaware community come away from this with a better understanding of how hunger and other challenges to survival as a result of poverty affect people in this world, and I hope the Hunger Banquet shows them ways they can help ease the affliction of poverty in the lives of others, locally and internationally.”

The year’s Hunger Banquet will be held at 6 p.m. December 3 in the Benes Rooms of Hamilton-Williams Campus Center. Admission is $3 or three canned goods per person to benefit the Columbus Open Shelter. Tickets will be available at the door, or daily at noon in Ham-Wil atrium beginning November 30. The public is encouraged to attend.

As people enter the banquet, they will be given slips of paper that identify their socioeconomic class. The type and quantity of food they are given will reflect their status, with the goal of bringing hunger into visible focus.

The 15 percent of banquet attendees who represent the world’s upper class will enjoy a sumptuous four-course, fully catered meal. The 30 percent who represent the middle class will be permitted to wait in line and serve themselves a helping of rice and beans. The remaining 60 percent, representing the world’s poor, will be served from a soup-style kitchen, receiving only one scoop of rice that they must eat while seated on the floor.

“It forces us to step into someone else’s shoes by imagining ourselves to be in another social class, eating only rice for dinner,” Slebodnik says. “And even those who are randomly selected to be part of the 15 percent who eat the full-course meal receive a wake-up call for how fortunate they are, which might provoke them to think of ways to reach out to those struggling to make ends meet.”

The event is based on OxFam America’s role-playing dramatization “The Hunger Banquet.” Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization committed to creating lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice.

Sean Kay, Ph.D., professor of politics and government and chair of the International Studies Program, will serve as the evening’s keynote speaker.

– Cole Hatcher