What You Can Do to Help in the Fight Against Hunger
Brought to you by SPOON (Stanford Project on Hunger, http://hunger.stanford.edu, to join our mailing list, please email majordomo@lists with "subscribe spoon-hunger" (no quotes) in body, email is spoon@haas.stanford.edu.

• 800 million hungry: that's 1 out of every 7 people in the world.
• Every day, 24,000 people die from hunger or hunger-related causes; every 3.6 seconds, someone dies of hunger.
  

1. Donate money or food. Non-profit organizations -- local, national, and international, depend on contributions. Many food banks rely heavily on canned food drives. It is estimated that if everyone in the United States donated $3.50 (the cost of a large latte) to sub-Saharan Africa, we could cut hunger in half in sub-Saharan Africa by 2015. Bread for the World writes, "The United Nations Development Program estimates that the basic health and nutrition needs of the world's poorest people could be met for an additional $13 billion a year. Animal lovers in the United States and Europe spend more than that on pet food each year." For a listing of some hunger-relief organizations, check out SPOON's page. An interesting position on giving is taken by Peter Singer, the Princeton philosophy professor, who argues that buying luxury goods such as fancy cars is unethical because that money could have gone to charity and saved lives. He writes in his 1999 article "Singer's Solution to World Poverty" (also on SPOON's website), "Going out to nice restaurants, buying new clothes because the old ones are no longer stylish, vacationing at beach resorts - so much of our income is spent on things not essential to the preservation of our lives and health. Donated to one of a number of charitable agencies, that money could mean the difference between life and death for children in need." While tossing money blindly will not eliminate world hunger, it is a fact that if individuals in rich countries and their governments were more generous and effective with giving, hunger could be reduced and eventually eliminated.

2. Choose a career path that involves hunger. Non-profit workers, policy-makers, researchers can involve hunger every day. Even those in the private sector can do so as well. Future engineers, doctors and other professions, instead of concentrating on the problems of rich countries for which there is already enough funding, can address the needs of the hungry and malnourished across the world. Those who enter the medical profession can consider the public health needs of the poor across the world, many of whom are vulnerable to certain diseases because they are hungry and malnourished. Computer engineers, instead of trying to create the latest high-tech gadget for the U.S. market, can ask themselves what the world's hungry need. Websites like thehungersite.com are an excellent example of how technology can be used to help reduce world hunger.

3. Volunteer, Join SPOON. There are plenty of local organizations that would love your help.
Here are a few:

Ecumenical Hunger Program: EHP provides food, clothing, household essentials, social advocacy, and referral services to the East Palo Alto community. Volunteers provide a range of services, including packing food boxes, interviewing clients, sorting food and clothing, and data entry. Phone: (650) 323 - 7781

Urban Ministry of Palo Alto: The Urban Ministry runs several different programs throughout the area, including a homeless drop-in center and food closets. Phone: (650) 853 - 8697, 814-9812
SPOON also organizes volunteer trips to soup kitchens and cooks breakfast for the homeless; please email spoon@service.stanford.edu to get more information. There are many organizations that could use your help.

4. Make thehungersite.com your homepage (and your dorm computer cluster's homepage-ask your RCC to set it) and click on it everyday. Instead of paying money to advertise, sponsors pay for food to be given to hungry families from around the world. For a family starving in an underdeveloped country, this could make all the difference. Please set it as your homepage and tell all your friends about it.

5. Educate yourself and promote awareness among friends and family. Remind your friends not to waste food at the dining hall. Encourage discussions about poverty and hunger issues in the news. Any little thing you can do is a big help.

6. Help elect officials who care about hunger and increase your advocacy for the hungry. Good policy can help to alleviate hunger. Although hunger is often not on the public agenda, with increased advocacy we can put it on the agenda. Petitions and phone calls to representatives help. Writing editorials in your local paper will increase awareness as well as put pressure on elected officials.

7. Host Hunger banquets in your dorm or house (contact SPOON for help).
The Oxfam Hunger Banquet directly engages participants in a dramatization of the unequal distribution of resources and wealth in the world.

Each guest draws a ticket randomly assigning them to the high-, middle- or low-income tier and is served a corresponding meal. The 15 percent in the high-income tier are served a sumptuous gourmet meal. The 30 percent in the middle-income section eat a simple meal of rice and beans. The majority 55 percent in the low-income tier wait in line for small portions of rice and water.

The Oxfam Hunger Banquet is a powerful tool that brings to life the inequalities in our world and challenges us, as the more economically fortunate, to realize how our decisions affect others in the world. Few leave a Hunger Banquet with full stomachs, but all leave filled with a greater understanding of the problems of global hunger and poverty and the motivation to do something about it. Source: http://www.oxfamamerica.org

8. Reduce your food waste in the dining halls; take only as much food as you will eat since in most dining halls you can go back. The amount of food thrown away by students is enormous (just in FloMo dining fall quarter '99, the food wastage by students was over 1,000 pounds weekly!), and collectively this has disastrous effects. Initially, this would increase food salvaging by SPOON (food salvaging is the transfer of unused, leftover food from dining facilities to local hunger relief organizations). The leftovers would be used to alleviate hunger in Palo Alto. After the dining halls adjust for reduced student food waste, your meal plan costs would be reduced; more student waste causes higher meal plan costs. As the dining halls buy less food, this may free up food resources for the hungry. Instead of food coming to feed Stanford students and ending up in the garbage, it may go to other sources, including hunger relief organizations.