Friday, November 19, 1999
Students join the hungry for a day
BY CINDY SCHROEDER
The Cincinnati Enquirer
FORT THOMAS — Instead of his favorite lunch of pizza Thursday, 12-year-old Billy Manning had to make do with a bowl of rice and no drink.
“It's definitely not my choice of food,” the St. Thomas School sixth grader said, as he devoured clumps of white rice without benefit of utensils. “I'd rather be eating pizza.”
Billy was among 87 St. Thomas students from middle- and upper-income families who took part in the school's 12th annual hunger banquet Thursday.
Set to coincide with World Hunger Day, the event is intended to dramatize the world's unequal distribution of resources and how they impact world hunger, organizers said.
Participants also wrote reports on countries as part of the hunger project, and after the banquet, they wrote brief essays discussing their reaction to the exercise.
“We do this partly to accentuate the fact that more than half of the people who live in the world are starving,” said Barbara Hahn, a social studies teacher who organized this year's banquet.
Billy, like 60 percent of his school's sixth, seventh and eighth grade pupils, drew a ticket that identified him as one of the “have not” citizens of a poorer country. Mem bers of his group crammed into a corner of the school cafeteria, where they devoured bowls of rice, after a brief hike around the school grounds.
One-fourth of the participants drew “middle income” tickets. They stood in line for chicken noodle soup, and ate their meal seated in chairs, with no tables.
The smallest group, or 15 percent of the pupils, were designated high income. As such, they sat at tables, and were served as much pizza, salad, soft drinks, and desserts as they wanted.
Before attending the hunger banquet, most of the participants skipped breakfast. Instead of lunch, they ate crackers or a small piece of fruit.
“It's one thing to learn about hunger by watching a video or reading about it in a textbook,” Mrs. Hahn said. “This sort of experience makes it real.”
For sixth-grader Maggie LaFleur, the exercise was a little too real, as she struggled with hunger pangs and a growling stomach.
And classmate Emily Donelan proclaimed the plain, barely warmed rice as “nasty, with no taste whatsoever.”
“I wouldn't want to live like this,” she said.
The sad death of a place for birth and life
40 inmates freed as jail nears limit
Police shun ex-con's firm
Warrant amnesty offered for 1 day
Bulk of warrants for minor offenses
Partial list of warrants in Kenton Co.
Throng fawns over Glenn
Glenn center loses $10M bid in House
Showdown is looming at Fernald
Options for treating Fernald waste
Another bomb threat closes school
Delta boosts convention center
Medicare bill aids hospitals
Payday loans' high interest adds misery, lawmakers told
Softball coach gives $387,000 to NKU
Forging a separate faith
The Boss: How rock is done
CSO gives premieres good launch
GET TO IT
No bingo winners at Channel 12
Roots redefine the rap show
She's faced disease and endured
Whose home for the holidays?
Business ads slam justice for liability-limits ruling
Butler Co. races too close to call
Deerfield broadens its powers
Fund-raiser to give ailing kids a hand
Group shares its Shawnee heritage
Lebanon turns maroon and white
Miami U sees hidden agenda in lawsuit
Mining company appeals rejection of zoning change
Panel weighs anti-smoking plan
Patton bans outdoor burning after fires
Police, FBI seek Falmouth bank robber
School district fires treasurer, but won't say why
Siblings reunited after 8 decades apart
State GOP trolls N.Ky. for cash
Students join the hungry for a day
Trenton goes 'football-crazy'
TRISTATE DIGEST
