COLTS NECK — The eighth-grade class at the Cedar Drive Middle School expected to attend a school assembly on Jan. 14, but instead of watching an assembly the pupils participated in a surprise banquet — a hunger banquet.
According to Ileen Stoner, the Colts Neck K-8 School District service learning coordinator, the purpose of the hunger banquet was to educate the students about the issue of hunger and the unfair distribution of food in the world.
To simulate world food distribution, three different meals were prepared in advance by members of the Colts Neck PTO to represent one of three groups of people in the world: those who have more than enough food; those who have just enough food; and those who never get enough to eat, she explained.
Stoner said 15 percent (28 children) of the 184 students in the eighth grade enjoyed a full course meal, while 35 percent (64 children) had a middle income meal, and the remaining 50 percent (92 children) had a meager meal. Students were randomly assigned to a group by colored tickets and a discussion and reflection followed the banquet.
All of the students had a regularly scheduled lunch as well, she said.
“Students who received a blue ticket (upper income) comfortably enjoyed a full course meal that included salad, pasta, chicken, ginger ale and a brownie sundae,” said Stoner, who is also the school’s language arts teacher. “Students with a yellow ticket (middle income) had rice and beans with fruit juice, while the red ticket (lower income) had students waiting in a long line for a meal of day-old bread and dirty (looking) water. They had to eat their meal on the floor.”
She said the hunger banquet was an interdisciplinary project. Andrew Czerwinski, an eighth-grade social studies teacher at the school, said he prepared the students for the banquet by showing video clips from Internet websites recommended by Stoner. Also, he said his students investigated issues in Hindu and Buddhist countries such as hunger, poverty and human rights, and posed solutions to these problems.
Stoner said Jeff Pringle, also an eighthgrade social studies teacher at the school, moderated the banquet with a discussion and information session to explore the experience of the banquet and the effects of food distribution in various countries, including Haiti.
The students were allowed to express their feelings at an open microphone and all of the students were required to write their reflections on the hunger banquet.
Some of the written reflections provided by Stoner include: “This activity really opened up my eyes and made me think about all the starving people in the world. It also made me feel grateful that I have food and a house. This also made me feel angry and upset to see how much food other people have and throw away when there are starving people in the world.”
“I ate rice, beans and fruit punch. I didn’t think this was fair at all. I really believe that the highest class should have helped the lower classes.”
“I experienced a great meal, but also guilt. Seeing others with so little or even nothing made me feel bad. It is hard to think how much we take for granted here in Colts Neck.”
“I got nothing. Didn’t take anything. I feel annoyed. The guilt struck me so I took nothing. We live in such an unfair wasteful world.”
“I was part of the high class with amazing food. I feel guilty though because I had more food than I even needed. I would be willing to give up some of my own to the people who only had bread.”
Stoner said the purpose of the hunger banquet was to elicit more than feelings of guilt or anger.
“We don’t want the students to only feel pity or guilt or be angry,” she said. “We want the students to know they can make choices and policies to change hunger and poverty here and in other countries. There are many ways to help the hungry, such as through food banks.”
Barbara Scholz, the development director for the FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties, said about six million pounds of food was distributed to needy residents in Monmouth and Ocean counties in 2009. Each year since 2007, the percentage of people requesting food has risen 30 to 40 percent, she said.
“Our newest requests come from middle class families that have exhausted their unemployment benefits and cannot find jobs to support their families,” said Scholz.
The FoodBank of Monmouth and Ocean Counties helps feed local people mainly through the more than 250 organizations that receive food from the food bank, including shelters, after-school programs, soup kitchens and food pantries.