No food for the Fed Up

                Over the past five years I have participated in five 30 Hour Famines. The 30 Hour Famine is an event sponsored by World Vision, where teenagers and adults get together and do not eat for thirty hours to raise money and awareness for world Hunger. A few years ago the number of children who died everyday from lack of food and fresh water were a startling 29,000, but now with help from things like the 30 Hour Famine that number has decreased to 25,000. Twenty five thousand is still an extremely large number but that I know that because of my efforts a few children are safe for one more day.

                Doing the 30 Hour Famine is a very touching experience. The group I participate in is a group of teenagers from churches all over Fairfield County, CT. We raise money the months approaching the Famine, getting people to sponsor us and raising awareness. When the day comes we all meet at the town green and we walk to the church in matching t-shirts, holding signs to increase awareness about world hunger. During the day we participate in various service projects and we have people come and give witnesses on different topics relating to fasting or volunteering. We learn more about the places we are helping and about the different situations within these countries. We participate in group activities and do, “ice breakers” that create friendships. It is an unforgettable life experience.

However, after doing all of these different activities, my favorite time of the day, is when we are given ten dollars to go do a random act of kindness. For the past two years, when it is around dinner time, we are divided into groups and are given ten dollars to go do something nice for someone. Every year I am filled with a feeling of pride when I hear not only what I have done, but what my friends have done as well. One year we went to the florist and we bought as many flowers as the owner would give us for ten dollars. We then went to the Cancer ward of the hospital and visited with the patients and gave them each a flower. Their smiles brightened my day and silenced my growling stomach for a while. Another year, my group went and bought a pizza and some coffee to the firefighters who had to be at the fire house all night. They were extremely thankful for our gift and we talked to them about saving lives. One of my favorite years, a group took sticky notes and wrote inspirational quotes on them and put them all over town. It was really cool to see how people read them and reacted.

My favorite part of the whole weekend is the prayer service right before we go to bed. At around midnight all 175 of us and the parents with us go into the church and we have a prayer service. There is something so special about being in a dark room with almost two hundred people who are absolutely silent. I have never experienced anything in my life that was that cool. Everyone comes into the room and we are hungry and tired and irritable but at that moment it does not matter. Nothing matters but saving these lives. The music starts to play and while it is somewhat different every year we light candles to represent the number of children who are dying while we are there. We reflect on the day and it is the most peaceful experience I have ever had and even though we are together fighting a war on hunger, it feels like nothing bad has ever happened in the world. When we walking into that church almost two hundred people fell silent and were all thinking about one thing, saving lives. That is the most amazing thing. No matter how tired or hungry or sad or any emotion, fill in the blank, we were we could all put it aside and just be together for that one prayer service. Then once it is all over and all the candles are lit, filling the dark church with a glow, we slowly get up and walk back over to the Church school hall where we do some final activities and then get ready for bed.

Getting up in the morning is always a weird feeling. You feel like you should go get breakfast but instead you open your eyes to two hundred people lying next to you in sleeping bags, and there is no food in sight. Normally in the morning, there is another witness or other activities that require less energy because right about now everyone is tired and hungry. Then we go to church at ten o’clock and we process into the church and sit in the front. This is the one time that I have ever seen the church so full. There are people everywhere, so many people in fact you would think it was a Christmas mass. We walking into the church and we sit and listen to the mass. We sing when everyone else sings and pray when everyone prays but for us it is different. We are not just singing and praying, it means so much more after being in a hungry child’s shoes for this short time. Mass is even more special when we break our fast with the Eucharist. But when that special moment is over you can feel the excitement building because two hundred hungry teenagers know that food is near and as the mass ends everyone is invited to have breakfast in the school hall, where we spent the last thirty hours. After stuffing our faces many people feel nauseous but normally stick around a while to talk and socialize and then clean up. But we never forget the faces we see in the pictures that were passed around or the hunger and fear in the eyes of a child who does not know when their next meal is coming. We will never forget.

The Famine is one of the most important things I have ever done in my life. It is one of the most fun things I have ever done in my life, but it is also the most meaningful. I know that for a few hours of my own discomfort I saved a life. I am no longer saying that I am fed up with world hunger and world issues, but I am clothing the naked and caring for the sick. I am feeding the hungry. I am no longer fed up, I am answering a call for help. I am saving a life.