REVOLUTION HUNGER BLOG

I will never be hungry. Even if my grandmother doesn’t cook for a week and I’m left in the house alone…matter of fact, she did that yesterday. No matter how much bread or eggs cost, I will never feel the experience of real hunger.  I will never watch my skin cling to my bones. I will never witness family members dying because of malnutrition.  I won’t have to worry about walking two miles to a well, to get fresh water for my family.  I will never have to pay before I eat. And I certainly will never understand NOT being able to go to the Wendy’s to get a small chocolate milkshake.  I will never feel these things because I am privileged. Privileged to live in a country where people waste bread, eggs, clean water, and milk daily.  It was the card I was dealt.  No choice in the matter.  Just the card handed out by the dealer. I have lived my whole life privileged. Privileged to be born without a glass ceiling. Privileged to grow up in the richest country in the world.   Remember, it was just the next card that came out of the deck.  But, I have choices.  I got choices on how I play the hand I was dealt.  I got a lot of options.  The ball is in my court.  

I have read a lot of articles about hunger and famine.  I have seen a lot of television segments.  The message is consistent.  Most of the commentators, writers, and op-ed pages agree.  Something is wrong.  How can almost one third of the world be hungry, continents starving, but a small country like ours has more than enough food? America’s elephant that never seems to leave the room. But, the part that doesn’t sit well with me is that all of the messengers of this message are small humanist groups.  I mean, it was only two weeks ago when almost every person I knew was tweeting about stopping a brutal African warlord from killing more innocent children.  And they even took thirty minutes out of their busy schedules to watch a movie about dude.  They bought t-shirts.  Some bracelets. Even tweeted at Rihanna to take a stance.  But, a person dies every 3 minutes from starvation or malnutrition and my friends are quiet. Eerily quiet. Not even a trending topic for the problem.

We’ve seen the stomach churning commercials.  We’ve read the statistics.  We listened to the documentaries and activists.   But we’ve never felt the pain of those going without a sufficient meal for WEEKS.  

So I’ve made the choice today to tell my friends that the rights I take for granted are only valid if I fight to give those same rights to others.  The bread. The hella expensive bottled water. The meal. These are all things I’ve taken for granted.  

rubz:

Raise awareness for the people dying all over the world because of hunger.

Thank you for your powerful message! We are fighting to end hunger at Revolution Hunger.

Amongst my peers there are varying levels of understanding of the hunger issue. The spectrum ranges from people who are not quite sure where hunger exists, to people who have a thorough understanding of the issue. When asked if they had any ideas on how to fight hunger, most had a few. Such as not waisting food and working in food banks, both wonderful and effective ideas. I wanted them to expand their thinking. As I continued talking to them I attempted to have them look at the issue of malnutrition from a different perspective. Many when asked where is hunger? Listed far away places like, Africa and Southern Asia, and while hunger does exist there very few acknowledged the people that are hungry in our very own county, state even. When I reminded them of what they said earlier about volunteering at food shelves and programs like food stamps. It then dawned on many of them that this is not just global problem but one that many of us come in contact with more often then we think. 

     So far no one has been able to solve the multivariable equation that is hunger. There are thousands of hunger relief organizations and programs. Most of us are familiar with food shelves and soup kitchens, both of wich provide temporary salvation for many. I wanted the people I was talking to to think beyond that, and to understand that them as an individual can make a huge impact doing what you love. We need to become innovators, if you are passionate about engineering use those skills to aide in the hunger fight. Most of them haven’t thought about it like that and began telling how they could infuse the hunger fight into their future career choice. They all had great ideas, and I believe many of them will pass on this way of thinking.

       I went to an event called World Savvy in St. Paul, Minnesota, this organization strives to educate and engage youth in world and community affairs. These students had a lot of powerful words to say about the hunger fight!

Here is the link to a short video shocasing these words: http://revolutionhunger.tumblr.com/post/19123575330/alexcia-jellum-is-the-twin-cities-new-media

Guest Post By Kaleigh Friend

At Central Illinois Foodbank, we distribute food to soup kitchens and food pantries in 21 counties which we collect from grocery stores, manufacturers, and local donations, as well as food that comes from Feeding America and USDA. Last year we distributed over 8 MILLION pounds of food to the agencies we work with- all on a staff of just 14 people.

Hunger is an issue that effects people in all walks of life. Here in central Illinois, we know that specifically in the children population, 1 in 4 kids don’t know where their next meal will come from. As our area is largely a rural population, there may be many miles between grocery stores and the issue of hunger is stigmatized and kept quiet.

So, how can you get involved and help out? Visit our website at www.CentralILfoodbank.org or check us out on Facebook, Twitter, even Pinterest.

Kaleigh Friend is the Public Relations Manager at Central Illinois Foodbank