Students at Middle Tennessee colleges recognized hunger amongst their peers and decided to do something about it. They opened up food pantries so that students would no longer go hungry. Thus today, Austin Peay State and Tennessee State facilities are able to offer free food and toiletries for students encountering temporary difficulties due to economic uncertainty and inflation. Canned foods and cereals are being given to them to try to supplement their lacking diet.
Save Our Students
The project all began when students at Austin Peay discovered some students were attending classes hungry. They thus took matters into their own hands and started a social work graduate class project. The next step was to work in conjunction with the university, launching the “Save Our Students” food pantry, providing students with enough food for about three days.
One of the issues that has led to students reaching the poverty line and going hungry, is that parents who would otherwise have supported their children more financially, are losing jobs and homes and simply cannot afford to do so anymore. So for those not eligible to receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, for various reasons, this is the solution.
Pay It Forward?
Simultaneously, moving over to the University of Central Missouri, business students are providing local day cares and preschools with backpacks of food. This began when the Early Childhood Hunger Operation during the 2011 fall semester was adopted by one of the classes. In Warrensburg, $930 and over 50 backpacks of food to children in the area was donated by the ECHO project that sprung out of a UCM class. It is still in operation and going well. This began with business students and social workers joining forces to find out what was needed. They saw the kids come for a morning snack who were stuffing themselves, clearly because they were starving. Thus it was deemed necessary to engage in this project.
Students Hunger Strike
And then there are the students globally who are being educated on hunger issues and taking it upon themselves to “go hungry – so others don’t have to.” They are being educated on what is going on with the world’s hungry – 925 million people who are not getting enough sustenance daily with around 11,000 children under the age of 5 dying due to hunger.
So, in response to this, many students “do the Famine,” not eating for 30 hours so that they can feel what it is like to be hungry. Thereafter they raise funds to help hungry families around the world. Every $30 raised by each group can help feed and care for a child for a month. Powered by World Vision, The Famine is not just feeding kids for today — it is giving them the opportunity to beat hunger for a lifetime.
Let’s hope the Famine doesn’t come to students in America – without them campaigning against it in third world countries – and that caring individuals in western world countries take action today to ensure this doesn’t happen.