Jan. 27 students got to experience different hierarchies of a typical third-world nation in the Walnut Room of Talley.
As students entered the door, they chose a colored slip of paper determining their social class. The main purpose of Hunger Dinner: A Taste of World Hunger was to give students a better understanding of the starvation around the world.
The starvation was mainly displayed in the lower class. The students’ meal consisted of a shared pan of rice and a pitcher of water. There was no silverware so people ate with their hands.
The middle class received plastic silverware and their meal was limited to rice, beans and green beans and juice or water. The upper class received Sterling Silver utensils and unlimited refills of drinks, a salad, spaghetti, lemon, butter, bread and all the above.
Ali McDaniel, executive director of the Service Leadership team, said he felt the main purpose of the program was to educate people about hunger and issues globally.
‘Often people do not realize the distinctions in social status in everyday life,’ McDaniel said, ‘People are typically with a group in the same social class.’ To McDaniel, the program challenged the statistics about the social status of people in a typical country.
The majority of people fall into the poverty range, making up 60 percent of the population. These people make less than $2.50 a day. 14 percent make up the extremely impoverished people. 16 percent make up the diminishing middle class and about 10 percent are in the upper class, making over $9,000 in a year.
McDaniel said, ‘Seeing how other people have to live and how easily the lower middle class can switch to extreme poverty had a great impact on the students.’
Various individuals are born into a low sector not by choice and it is extremely hard to get out of the situation, he said.
Some people feel they cannot make a difference. People were talking about giving their food to another. Every single person doing something can make a difference.
To Christine Nguyen, director of Hunger and Homelessness, the high attendance and the high quality of the group made the program effective.
Nguyen said, ‘I never realized how committed students were to the issue.’
Many students wanted to participate, had really good comments and were really interested in the topics.
‘Actually seeing the disparity in the lower, middle class and upper class hit home for a lot of people,’ Nguyen said.
Numerous students took the program as a learning experience as oppose to taking their particular rank personally. Nguyen said,’ I was surprised in how much humility there was when people offered their utensils and food to the lower class.’
Ethan Grimmer, a sophomore in psychology feels there should be more programs about hunger awareness.
‘Walking into the door, we had to choose a piece of colored construction paper without looking and based on the color we were randomly categorized into a social class,’ Grimmer said. The number of people in each hierarchy was based of realistic information.
Grimmer said, ‘The program was great in bringing awareness about poverty’
A sign at the event said, ‘the money it takes to make one missile can fund a school for five years.’
Grimmer said, ‘We should be grateful in what we have and not apathetic. If we all could unite a we could all make a difference together.’