Whether traveling abroad or walking down Main Streets in our hometowns, hunger and homelessness are prevalent. Hunger/Homeless Awareness Week is April 12-17. As the week approaches, groups on campus are getting excited for a time of education, experience and reflection.
Locally and regionally involved, Northwestern’s hunger/homeless ministry seeks “to educate students and encourage them to be more active in terms of poverty locally and globally,” Lanet Hane, the group’s intern, said. Working primarily with soup kitchens, shelters, Kids Against Hunger, and Love INC—a national cooperation of church affiliates with connections in Sioux Center—the group lends a strong, helping hand throughout the area.
The group’s main project during the week of awareness is a hunger/homeless simulation in which students and faculty have the opportunity to confine themselves to the RSC for a time of reflection and discussion through speakers, devotions, communion and various activities. Participants can choose to spend only one night or the entire week sleeping in the RSC.
The simulation will attempt to enlighten the campus on the issues present in our community and world. Along with group discussions and seminars, participants will package food for Haiti and make blankets to be distributed by Love INC. Linking students and staff, the campus-wide simulation aims to enact a compassionate and effective response in the involvement of citizens throughout local and global communities.
The hunger/homeless ministry desires to instill in students the knowledge that poverty is indeed an issue in Iowa, Sioux County and even Orange City. While it looks different from a third-world or big-city view, poverty is prevalent around us, and there are ways even busy college students can get involved.