A Hunger Banquet?
The rich aroma of cinnamon and onions permeated the kitchen. The Fed Up With Hunger team was cooking up a smorgasbord of food at the University Religious Conference, the umbrella group for faith-based organizations at UCLA. We assembled quite a spread: curried tunafish salad, spiced lentils, spinach salad, long grained white rice, platters of pastries and a bevy of 2 liter bottles of soda. Who would have thought that it was all for a hunger banquet?
It’s not as much of an oxymoron as you may think. Our hunger banquet, an event originally pioneered by Oxfam International, brought college students together from UCLA, USC and Hebrew Union College to examine the full breadth of food security, from those who eat well to those who barely eat at all. A lucky few did get to partake in the smorgasbord…but most were not so lucky.
The banquet program ran similarly to a Passover Seder: a lengthy scripted conversation and a meal, culminating in a moment of reflection. The students learned that food insecurity in the developing world and here in the United States is different, but very much the same. For you folks at home, I’ll boil it down to the elevator speech: the food insecure, both here and abroad, suffer from impaired development and chronic disease that engenders poverty and pushes a happy, healthy life further out of reach for the vulnerable people that live in our community.We were lucky to have Jeanne Smith, Chaplain and Director of UCLA’s Wesley Foundation and Rabbi Noah Farkas from Valley Beth Shalom to help bring the big ideas and abstract numbers of food insecurity down to earth by relating first hand experiences they’ve had of people suffering from hunger. Rabbi Farkas spoke of a little, starving girl he met while building a school in Ghana. Jeanne told the story of her humanitarian mission to Haiti, obviously still haunted by the failed state’s desperate, teeming masses. These were ”light bulb” moments that motivated them to make social action and justice central themes of their lives.
As I said before, the banquet was a lot like a Seder- we were all extremely hungry by the time we had finished the scripted portion of the night! Little did the participants know, however, that they would not all enjoy a satiating meal. Those lucky enough to number among the rich were served heaping piles of spiced lentils, curried tuna fish and spinach salad. Those who were among the American food insecure had barely palatable dollar store donuts and soda. The last and most food insecure group ate only rice and drank water from tiny dixie cups.
As I looked around, I noticed an uneasiness had entered the room. Those who had been served the wholesome meal ate sheepishly, obviously embarrassed that they were only the ones enjoying a full meal. The others joked about staging an insurrection and taking some of the better food for themselves.
After people had had their fill, I closed the banquet with a question: “What did you learn tonight?” I didn’t need the students to respond to know the answer: I had seen it in their faces as they ate. Hunger and food insecurity had gone from being remote concepts to something present in their minds, in their hearts, and as a taste that had still not left their tongues.
I can only hope that, for some of them, it was a light bulb moment.
