Hunger Games

I am a little behind on some popular reading, but decided to catch up the other day after continually seeing and hearing about Hunger Games. I found the book online and began reading around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. I read for twelve hours straight, stopping only for a bite to eat. I read about two hours the following day and was finished with the book. After all, I only had about 30 pages left to read.

I didn’t really know what to expect going into the book, just that it was very popular. I approached with an open mind. It captured my attention from the beginning, something fairly difficult to do for me. I will say that some of the ending is predictable, but the events in between were unknown. What would happen next? I had to know. The writing style was almost journal-like as it was in first person. It often annoyed me. It was definitely not Harry Potter. But it was a great read. And throughout the entire read I kept trying to analyze it as if I were back in my high school literature class days. What was being said about our society? Was this an allegory?

I began to think that maybe the Capitol was meant to represent the United States. The districts which were more well off, at least with plenty of food, might be considered Western Europe and possibly other industrialized nations such as Australia and Japan. And further districts were representative of places where, although some people may be surviving without much problem, there are many people starving. Many people were needlessly dying from malnutrition and a lack of money to buy food, medicine and shelter.

I previously interned with an organization, Heifer International, whose mission was to end world hunger and poverty while caring for the earth. I couldn’t help but think about that in this context either. They work to teach communities invaluable skills. Later the community may receive plants or animals to help them become self-sustainable. These gifts begin to change their lives as they are not allowed to eat the gift itself. They can, however, eat the produce from the gifts and sell the rest for extra income. Take a cow for example. They can drink the milk. Or a nanny, which can provide milk for drinking or cheese. Keeping this in mind, I continued reading and then I came across this on page 144.

Owning a nanny goat can change your life in District 12. The animals can live off almost anything, the Meadow’s a perfect feeding place, and they can give four quarts of milk a day. To drink, to make into cheese, to sell.

That brings me to my conclusion. Whether or not this book is meant to be allegorical or not, it has some truth to it. It is no game at all. People around the world fight for their lives every day. Maybe they aren’t set up by the government against each other, with only one person allowed to live, but they have to fight their environment. They have to fight empty stomachs. They have to fight disease. They have to fight for their lives.

But, you and I, we can do something about this. Unlike the sponsors in the book it does not cost us a fortune to send gifts to these people. In fact, through Heifer International we can buy an entire flock of baby chickens for $20. Or, if we don’t want to spend that much, we could pay for a share of a goat for $10. Every little bit counts. Even a Heifer is relatively inexpensive, $500, when compared with the benefits. And these donations aren’t helping just one person, they’re helping many. The first female offspring will be given to another person in need. The gift keeps giving. You can view Heifer’s entire gift catalog online. With Mother’s Day just around the corner this is a great opportunity to help a family in need in her honor.

Starving

In high school the BMI testing said I was at risk of being overweight. Now, I probably am. Too much food and not enough exercise. I have that luxury and I remember it every day at lunch.

I was going to write a long informative blog about hunger. But after this has set in my drafts folder for three weeks I have decided to make it a short, thoughtful entry. There are many people around the world who don’t have enough food to eat, enough water to drink, enough money to survive.

In recent news articles and blogs I read where parents in Africa are having to leave their children behind to die because there is not enough food. Another article talked about how at many refugee camps the food was taken back from the refugees after the journalists took photos. Much of the foreign relief aid was ending up on the market. These people don’t have enough food. Another article even more recently talked about hunger in the United States and how many children were going hungry. One child stated that the hardest time was when his mom wouldn’t eat so that he could.

Every morning on my way to work I have a package of poptarts and a soda. Then later in the afternoon I sit at my desk and eat lunch: A yogurt, sandwich, chips, crackers, cookies and drink. It is a little awkward because it reminds me of how lucky I am. I am interning at an organization whose mission is to end world hunger and poverty. At lunch I am eating more than some families get to eat in a week.

Keywords: Starving, World, Hunger, Relief, Aid, Death, Food, Nutrition

Solving World Hunger One Small Step at a Time

I often complain about the food served in the cafeteria at my school because I don't like the taste or way it is prepared. But while I complain about the food I have in front of me, people all around the world suffer and even die because they do not have food. They would love to have even a small piece of what I have in front of me.

As I was checking my Yahoo! account a headline caught my attention, "Earth Could be 'Unrecognizable' by 2050." I had to check it out. When I did, I was surprised by my own reactions; yet I also felt a little motivation. It struck me that although I am one person, I can do a little bit to help fight the increase in world hunger.

According to the article, by 2050 there will be an estimated 9 billion people on the planet. That is almost 2.5 billion more people than now and we already have a shortage in food. I have heard that the shortage is even worse this year with droughts and flooding throughout the world. But in 2050 there will be more people and less food per person. Reading a little further I saw that it took about seven pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat. That struck my curiosity.

I went to Google to find out the average weight of a cow that is raised for beef. I found a list of different cows and their weight at birth, final weight and average weight gain. The document on the Virginia Tech website listed 11 different types of beef cattle. I averaged their average weight gain per day together and came up with 2.7 pounds per day. Then I multiplied that by seven pounds of grain and came up with 18.8 pounds.

Then I thought, almost 19 pounds of grains used in one day for one cow. If redistributed from the original growing locations, that could feed more than 19 people in a day. One meal is better than no meal, not to mention, most people in these starving nations probably would not eat a pound of grain in one sitting.

The article stated as income goes up, the consumption of meat also goes up. Wages are expected to more than double and even quadruple in some places by 2050.

The article quotes Jason Clay of the World Wildlife Fund as saying, "We will need to produce as much food in the next 40 years as we have in the last 8,000." It later quotes him, "By 2050 we will not have a planet left that is recognizable."

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So, all of that and my mind began spinning. What can we do? My goal is to consume less farm-raised meat. I will continue to eat my normal portions of wild game, and maybe fish that my family or I have caught, but I want to consume less meat products. I won't be a vegetarian, but by consuming less, maybe in a year or two it will have some effect, although it may be negligible. But if everyone cut back on their meat consumption, what kind of difference could we make?

Of course, my mind didn't stop thinking after that. It continued on thinking of things that I could do. Then I remembered 30 hour famine, an event by World Vision, in which I helped last year. During the event, the youth group and adult leaders went without food for 30 hours. During that time we participated in fund raising, food collection and raising awareness about world hunger. Then I got an email from the local chapter of The National Society of Collegiate Scholars asking if anyone had ideas for service projects. I responded with the 30 hour famine.

I think I lost an hour, if not more, on my homework because I was thinking about this. Other organizations such as Heifer International, UNICEF and many others also help in their own ways and often need volunteers. Before I graduate, I would really like to get involved and help some how. So, step one: eat less meat.

Scattered like College

This post is going to be a little scattered. I want to cover multiple things that are unrelated. But I guess that is a lot like life too. You never know what is going to happen or how.

The sun is out again so that is great! ASU does not have a bus system that serves just the campus or that runs regularly. There are busses that stop every hour, but they also go all over the city.

I am working hard on getting my portfolio ready. That is a lot of work, especially since I do not have much time to prepare it. I have until tomorrow. I need to put it on disk, and I also want to host it on my "Mysite" page. Tomorrow is the job fair and I want to drop off my resume and a disk. But then there is a ton of other homework too. I have to fight the library hours in order to try and get everything done- I don't have a scanner in my dorm room.

On Tuesday nights I go to a bible study. I started going the second semester of my freshman year. It was formed by a group of friends and they went out witnessing to students on campus. One day one came up to me in the cafeteria and talked to me. They invited me to the group and I regularly attend now. We have not had any outreach projects yet this semester but we hope to soon. But for the past week we have been doing a 10% challenge. What that means is we are trying to give 10% of our week, or day to God for his time. We want that to be our best time, not just our leftover time. It has been going great.

The common theme over the past week for me has pretty much been how large God is. "God is bigger than
The air I breathe," one song's lyrics go. It is so true. He is so big my mind cannot even comprehend how big he is. He is bigger than me, this state, this country...this universe. So often I try to compartmentalize my life and only bring him out when it is convenient. But God is bigger than that, he can't be stuffed in a little box. Why am I trying? He should overcome in all parts of my life: school, work, free-time... Everything.

Also it stood out just how young the apostles were and the boldness. In Acts it describes Peter and another in front of the Sanhedrin. It describes them as being uneducated. They learned as they went with Christ, and look at what they did. Then Stephen gave a long spill, knowing there would be consequences, to the Sanhedrin. It resulted in his stoning, as he knew it likely would, yet he still spoke boldly and proclaimed the truth.

This weekend I was given the awesome opportunity to help my friends who are youth ministers at a local Methodist Church, along with other volunteers, do 30 hour famine with the youth. It was an amazing experience. I can't speak for what others were feeling, but from what I observed it was a great experience for everyone. We kicked it off by eating breakfast early Saturday morning. Then no more food. We participated in three main events on Saturday: Can collection for the Salvation Army in Jonesboro, a car smash to raise money for WorldVision, and "Bigger and Better" where we traded a quarter for an item then went to another home and tried to trade whatever we got for something bigger and better. That item would then be sold and the money would go to WorldVision as well. Saturday night during Worship some of the kids were in a bad mood, but a few hours later things looked better.

Sunday morning some of the kids had forgotten about being hungry until the leader asked if they were or not. The youth led worship and shared about the experience. At 11 everyone held signs to help raise awareness, and later came back to the church for another worship service and to break the fast with communion.

For me, I can honestly say that it was ALL God. After 13 hours without food I usually feel like throwing up. I never got that feeling this weekend. I did not really get hungry until Sunday morning, but even that subsided. God gave me strength to do the activities and everything without hunger ever being an issue.