Saturday 11/17/07

“hunger project” 

Fifth grade children receive lesson in hunger awareness  

By Richard Johnston

   MOUNT OLIVE (11/17/07) – It’s getting to look a lot like Christmas…holiday planning, gift buying, home decorations, and for 10 year old kids….Santa Claus.  But there also are many in churches, temples, service and civic organizations, religious and social circles who see it as a time of giving and a time to remember the less fortunate ….the hungry in our world.

    Here in Mount Olive two teachers, both described by one mother as “super” teachers came up with a project to raise the consciousness of the youngsters in their care concerning “hunger.”  They called it the “Hunger Project.” More than 400 children in the fifth grades of the four township elementary schools participated….Sandshore, Tinc Road, Chester M. Stephens and Mountain View.

    Hungry and hunger are just words to most of our children, said Roberta Foster, a fifth grade Gifted and Talented teacher, who along with fellow fifth grade teacher in Sandshore School, Donna Desmond, conceptualized a “hunger project” to give the children a better sense of what adults were talking about when they talked about the less fortunate ….children who know, live and die hungry. 

    “Donna heard about it in another school system and brought it here,” said Foster, who has been a teacher 30 years…Gifted and Talented for 16 years.

    The first thing the teachers did was arrange a power point presentation for all the children impressing on them that 75 percent of the world’s children suffered from hunger. The pictures of the starving and mal-nourished children really got their attention, said Foster.

    The next step was dividing the children into three groups…first, second and third world groups. 

     The first world group represented the western countries… just six percent of the children; the second group, about 30 percent, represented children in poorer and developing countries and about 70 percent represented the third world countries.

    We pointed out that while there are poor children right here in the United States who may not get enough food there are many social service agencies and help organizations that look out for them to be sure none starve to death as in many other countries.

      Next, parents were asked not to feed their children breakfast on the morning of the project so when they came to school they would really be hungry.

     Each of the children received envelopes with a number of chips (little pieces of paper). The first world group….very few…about six percent… received envelopes with 20 chips; the second, a little larger group, about 25 percent, got nine chips and the third world group… about 70 percent got  envelopes with just two chips. 

     When they came to school they went right to the cafeteria.  The designated first world students sat at a dining room table with a beautiful tablecloth, cloth napkins, candles, bowls of fruit and were served lasagna, salad, rolls and butter, cookies and anything they wanted. They had plenty of chips.      

     As one youngster noted, he saw some of those people going back for a third serving.

    The second group, with nine chips, sat at regular cafeteria tables, had paper napkins and had to carefully decide how they would use their chips.  They had lasagna as well and a salad, but no cookies.

     The third group, with just two chips each, sat on the floor, with really only enough chips for a roll and water.

     This involved a host of lessons for them to learn, said Foster, it was interesting to watch them “problem solving and pooling their resources,” seeing those with plenty and the different attitudes the third world children had with the first world children, some, but not all of whom chose to share what they had.

    The children also had passports to visit the other groups to “negotiate” trades.  “It was  fun and a good lesson for them to understand the importance of cooperating,” said Desmond.

     It was obvious the children had a much better understanding of what it was like to be hungry and how important it was to share after this project, said Foster.

    When the teachers felt the children had learned enough about hunger they all shared in the rest of the lasagna, salad, desert and milk meal.

    Perhaps most important were the essays the children were asked to write about their “hunger project” experience.

    They also learned there were web sites they could go to where they could personally be involved in helping the hungry.

    One that would help them improve their vocabularies, be a factual resource concerning hunger in the world and at the same time increase the amount of rice paid for by web site sponsoring companies that is being sent to third world countries. The web site is www.freerice.com  just started last month and already had accumulated, as of today, 2,098,280,280 grains of rice that will be sent to third world countries. Visit the web site.

      Another, perhaps even more interesting web site is www.heifer.com , cited by former President Bill Clinton in his latest book, where a small donation can be made to purchase baby chicks, pigs, cows and other edible animals at a very low price, given to a family to raise to breed or for their own food consumption.

     The tone of the letters the children wrote are striking for their maturity and understanding of the problems associated with hunger .  They wrote the letters themselves on computers.

    “I learned poor people do not have a lot of money.  They all have bad lives….every 3.6 seconds someone dies.  This is what I learned. I hope it will change. From Josh.

   “I learned different things from doing this project,” said Lauren, I learned that it isn’t easy for people to not eat for a long time, and that I should be thankful that I have food. I am lucky that I am this fortunate.  Also, I learned how to help others a lot with different things.  I feel sad about the people who die from hunger.  I will try to donate food to them.”

   “In this project I learned lots of sad things.  #1 I should not complain because some people are way less fortunate than me. #2 someone dies of hunger every three seconds due to hunger.  And some kids get potbellies when they starve.” That’s Nick.

     “I feel bad for people that live on 1$ a day.  34,000 kids die of hunger a year.  There are people in NJ that are in poverty.  I hope we don’t do this again.  I didn’t like it.”  Shane.

   “The thing I learned from this was how people feel like.  Also I know what it feels like to get a donation from rich people.  When I was on the floor with every one we all learned how to work as a team. I like being in the third world because we all worked as a team and I like doing that.  I really liked this project.  Deana…donate some food.

   The thing I learned was every 3.6 seconds another person dies of hunger.  Also 11 million kids a year die of hunger.  The next time I look in the pantry I will fell different like I have a choice and other people don’t. I think we all can make a difference if we donate food and help at the soup kitchen.”  Brandon.

     “I was in the second world.  I at least got to sit at table and have 9 and a half (chits) to eat. The lowest price was water and butter.  I just waited for the kings and queens (1st world) can get everything. I had salad bread and butter.  Then Lauren, Amy and I put our left over chips together & got a cookie in fourths for Lauren, Jackie, Amy and I.  It felt so weird and sad all at the same time.”  

    “Some of the new facts I learned are that over 1,100,000,000 people don’t have clean water.  Pre school & grade school who do not have enough food have more illness and behavior problems than well nourished people.  Hunger plays a role in at least half of the 11 million child deaths each year. Amy.