Hunger Awareness Event Doesn’t Land Despite Good Intentions

Image courtesy of Giving Compass

By ELIZA BARRET-COTTER ‘20

Last Friday, the Community Engagement Board hosted the annual Hunger Awareness Event in Forbes. During assembly that morning, students on the board presented some facts and figures about world hunger and the reasoning behind having the event in the first place. By having some students eat just rice, some eat rice and beans, and some eat a typical Sage meal, the event strives to raise awareness about world hunger in the school community. According to David Shaw (I), Milton also donates the money saved from the event to “Partners in Health, an organization that supports nutrition and health programs in Haiti and the Navajo Nation, where students go on the June service trip.” Unfortunately, I think that while the intentions of Community Engagement are good, the event doesn’t really accomplish what it’s supposed to. There is certainly a better way to approach students with the topic.

The fundamental issue with the event is that it’s patronizing to the people who are actually food insecure. We have the privilege of choice: every student at Milton Academy can eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the dining hall, and each student makes a choice every day to eat those meals or not. Most people around the world don’t have that choice — the conveyance of this message, in addition to the donation to Partners in Health and that Milton is able to make due to less food consumption, is one of the few successes of the event — but we do, and I think it’s just as important that those who do have consistent access to food be fed. I understand Community Engagement has to work within its means, but the event puts an image of poverty in people’s heads that’s not necessarily accurate. More importantly, this experience does not contribute towards equal understanding of the hunger issues across the world.. In my English class, we have been discussing that those who live well in developed countries — that is, most of us — see struggles like hunger, unemployment, homelessness, etc. through a romantic lens. Struggle is cute to those who don’t have it. In some cases, people act on their longing for difficulty, making misguided attempts to “live like” those who actually have to struggle. But, to reiterate, experiencing something does not indicate that any understanding has been formed. In the case of the Hunger Awareness Event, forcing people to drink only water and eat rice out of paper bowls is an experience that doesn’t create an appreciation for hunger that we as students don’t already have. 

In addition, I will say that as an athlete, going to practice after eating nothing but white rice, one of the least nutritious foods, is never a good idea. This challenge has been made marginally easier this year with the event no longer happening during winter-preseason, but it’s still important to be sufficiently fueled for captains’ practices. Assuming I would draw a rice ticket, I didn’t even go to lunch and instead went to the bookstore for something that would better sustain me for the day. But, referring back to the privilege of choice, it’s important to remember that each student on campus, athletes and non-athletes alike, has access to nutritious, sustaining food. Taking that away for a single day doesn’t really change anything come Monday.

I understand the good intentions of the Hunger Awareness Event, but the event doesn’t do much beyond changing people’s diets for a day. One addition I thought beneficial was the Upper School assembly that provided students with more information about world hunger. Although I understand this shift would be difficult, if Community Engagement could, in future years, provide more opportunities for students to learn the nuances of world hunger, there might be greater potential for the creation of a more long-term campus dialogue and increased appreciation for the issue.