Brittany Westerberg

A group of students will be fasting for a day in order to raise funds to feed the hungry.

As a project for the class ABS 310, Leadership for Families and the Food System, the students have decided to help raise awareness of world hunger. During Hunger Awareness Week, April 10-13, the group will be speaking on the local campus radio station and fliers will be put up around campus. They will fast on April 11.

“I think everyone should know that it only costs 19 cents per day to feed a child in a third-world country,” said group member Fred Foland, a sophomore general agriculture major.

The money raised will be donated to Heifer International, a project dedicated to ending hunger and caring for the earth. Their cornerstone principal is the proverb: “Give a man a fish, and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and you have fed him for a lifetime.”

“This project doesn’t just give them food,” said Foland. “The money will be used to buy chickens, cows, whatever they need in order to get them back on their feet and able to feed themselves.”

The idea behind the project, which started in 1944, is to give families a source of food instead of a short-term supply of it.

The project gives a hungry family a cow or another livestock animal. Once that family is doing better, they give the first offspring of that animal to another needy family. This is called “Passing On the Gift,” which is vital to Heifer’s approach. This way, people who had nothing to give before can now help out friends and neighbors.

“Since 1944, when Heifer first shipped cows to impoverished families, we have known that livestock offer one of the best resources for ending the cycle of chronic hunger and poverty that plagues two-thirds of the planet,” said Jo Luck, president of Heifer International, on the project’s Web site.

According to the Web site, the project has helped at least seven million people in over 125 different countries since its beginning.

Laurie Nichols, dean of the College of Family and Consumer Sciences, and Gary Lemme, dean of the College of Agriculture and Biological Sciences, fully support this project, and Hansen Hall government has already agreed to donate $100 for the cause, said Foland.

“Hopefully others will follow their example,” he said.

If anyone wishes to donate, checks or cash can be sent or given to Julie Bell, NFA 239 Box 2275A. For more information, you can call Bell at 688-4015. To learn more about Heifer International, go to

www.heifer.org.