30 Hour Famine Reflection by E. K. Rodriguez

On the weekend of April 27-28^th, I participated in the 30 Hour Famine. World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine is an event that is nationwide with the purpose of solving the problem of hunger. The event is held twice a year, and you can sign up at 30hourfamine.org but of course, you don’t need to sign up for the dates and you can participate by yourself.

The 30 Hour Famine is an event where participants must fast for 30 hours. The participant cannot eat anything for an entire day, plus an additional 6 hours. They are allowed to drink something, but as for food, the participant can’t eat at all. It seems like a daunting task to those of us who eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I can clarify and say that is definitely a difficult task. It’s harder than one would think it actually is.

In my experience throughout the day, I saw myself constantly being teased by the food around me, knowing that I wasn’t supposed to eat. For example, there are countless advertisements on the internet, in front of buildings or anywhere else, about fast food. I was noticing these ads more and more as I went on with the fast. I know how bad fast food is, but being so hungry, I just wanted to eat. In your everyday life, it’s simple to just see food that looks good to you, and in the end you just grab it, eat it, and continue your day. We don’t think too much about it. But everything changes once your stomach is in pain. You eat faster, you care less about what it is you’re actually eating, and you don’t care about the cost.

The cost of the food is probably the most important aspect of starvation, I think. Because you can’t afford certain food, starvation occurs. Sadly the food industry has now hit the highest prices for food in history. So anyone can be hungry, not just the people in 2^nd or 3^rd world countries. As World Vision put it: “It’s someone’s daughter, sister, brother…” This is an epidemic and from participating I can see how large it actually is. The fact is a child dies from hunger-related causes every 8 to 12 seconds. During the 30 hours, as I sat there with stomach pains, I realized what it was like to take a walk in the shoes of someone less fortunate than I am. I will definitely be participating in the 30 Hour Famine again next year, in order to show my support to those millions of people who fight to survive every year.