Hunger Banquet at Green Fields Feb. 13 Offers Taste of Reality

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TUCSON– Green Fields Country Day School is looking for 100 guests to come to the campus at 5:30 p.m. on Feb.13 to participate in an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet.

They will be fed – but how much depends on the luck of the draw.

“Life isn’t fair – and neither is this,” said Green Fields teacher Terese Dennison, quoting the global nonprofit Oxfam. “At an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet, the place where you sit and the meal that you eat are determined by the luck of the draw – just as in real life some of us are born into relative prosperity and others into poverty.”

When guests arrive on the grassy quad on the Green Fields campus in northwest Tucson, they will draw tickets that randomly assign them to one of three groups based on the latest statistics about the number of people living in poverty in America today.

Each income level receives a corresponding meal – 20 percent in the high-income tier will be served a sumptuous meal at a formal table setting, 30 percent in the middle-income section will eat a simple meal of rice and beans with informal seating arrangements, and 50 percent in the low-income tier will help themselves to small portions of rice and water and sit on the grass.

Head of School Rebecca Cordier said, “The Oxfam American Hunger Banquet provides us with an interactive way to understand hunger in America. Our Green Fields community is very sensitive to these kinds of issues and our social responsibility to others.”

This may be the first hunger banquet presented in Tucson by middle and high school students, she said. There is no charge for the meal but donations for Oxfam are encouraged.

Today more than 2.5 billion people live in poverty. Nearly 870 million children and adults suffer from chronic hunger. Guests will learn more through a scripted program from Oxfam, narrated by Green Fields senior Tom Maksvytis, student body president. Other student council members also will have speaking roles.

The event is limited to 100 participants age 12 and older. Make reservations online at http://hungerbanquet.greenfields.org, email msavin@greenfields.org or call 297-2288.

Emcee for the event will be Thomas B. Wilson, associate professor in the University of Arizona College of Agriculture. Recently the soil scientist gave a TEDx talk in Tucson on population growth and food supply.

The idea to present an Oxfam hunger banquets event came from Barbara Eiswerth of Iskashitaa Refugee Network. The local refugee group harvests oranges, pomegranates and figs grown on the Green Fields campus.

Student Council members and eighth-grade Beyond Boundaries students liked the idea. They worked to present the event with Kimberly King, who teaches biological sciences and is the student council sponsor, and Dennison, who teaches middle school history and English. Dennison heads Beyond Boundaries, a year-long project in which students connect with other 14-year-olds around the globe to expand their world view and form a clearer idea of global citizenship. The junior class Issue Day in November focused on hunger and food insecurity locally, nationally and globally.

Green Fields has embraced a farm-to-table focus the past three years, forming new partnerships with Iskashitaa to harvest unused produce and working with Sleeping Frog Farms to deliver fresh-from-the-farm food baskets each week for a community sustainable agriculture project for two years. Green Fields celebrated its 80th anniversary with a locally-sourced Dinner on the Green in the fall of 2013 and reprised the event for the 81st anniversary celebration in 2014. Green Fields students also tend garden on the 22-acre campus, learning about life cycles, nutrition and sustainability. The vegetables and herbs are sold at a monthly farmer’s market on campus and proceeds are donated to a nonprofit selected by the students.

Oxfam seeks to change the way people think about poverty and hunger and raise funds to support the organization’s work in 94 countries. Its roots date to World War II. “Oxfam” was the postal abbreviation for the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, started in England to provide relief to war victims in Europe. Since then, Oxfam affiliates have been established in 17 countries, including Oxfam America in 1970.

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