The Adventures: May 2012

I spent this last weekend with about 20 middle and high schoolers and several college-age leaders at a youth "lock-in" of sorts. We participated in what is called the 30 Hour Famine, done by World Vision. It's a fundraiser for starving children everywhere as well as a great awareness raiser, all specifically designed for youth.

The way the fundraising side works is the kids go around and get sponsors, much like a jogathon; some donors might choose to give per hour the kid can go with out eating and others may choose to give a flat amount. The idea is to get people to give about a dollar an hour, because World Vision can make about $30 stretch to feed a starving child for one month. Hence, the 30 Hour Famine.

The awareness part is accomplished with games that teach about a few different countries and their struggles, videos and clips of the hungry and the challenges they face. Oh and did I mention we didn't eat for the entire time? We all stopped eating at 12 noon on Friday and broke our fast with a meal of white rice, black beans and chicken at about 6pm on Saturday. I hate white rice and I typically don't care for black beans, but this meal is one of the best I have ever had!

The games all focused on teamwork and were all physically exerting in some way and they all related to different countries and their struggles. One game involved protecting the crops (two socks filled with rice and secured to a designated person on each team with binder clips) and trying to steal other teams' crops. Another focused on trying to get clean water from different sources and then carrying the bucket of water back and forth in a relay race. One included popping balloons to put together a meal. Another drew attention to the super preventable sickness of malaria, where teams had to find flashlight pieces and a mosquito net (blanket), put the flashlight together and, while wearing the blanket, shine the light on the malaria ridden mosquitoes (the team leaders) to expose them.

All of the teams had handicaps for all of the games. I, for example, along with another girl on my team had to wear a heavy backpack during all games to symbolize being weak from hunger. Others had things like mute from trauma (tied a scarf around face), blind from fire (wore sunglasses with scotch tape over the lenses), one leg trapped under tree (had to tape one leg up), feverish from hunger (wore heavy coats, blankets or sleeping bags), hands burnt by acid or fire (taped sandwich bags over hands) and hearing loss from bombings (stuffed ears with cotton balls). These handicaps and not eating definitely made the games more interesting!

On Saturday morning, we got up and went to feed the homeless under the Center Street bridge. Feeding the homeless while fasting was definitely a challenge! But from not eating, to working as a team, to talking and mingling with the homeless, our kiddos did awesome! I am so, so proud of all of them! Yes, there were times when we got cranky and just wanted to go home and eat and sleep, but we pulled through it together and it was so cool to see the kids get perspective on the suffering going on in this world-especially at the hands of something so preventable as malaria or hunger!

Also, it was a super cheap event to do...$100 was our budget and we spent about half of it on the one meal. A super simple event to do!