This following blog post was written by Janelle Bailey, the Hungry for Change (HFC) president at Ottawa University. In this post, she shares various ways in which HFC has been an active UFWH chapter on their campus during the past school year.
Hungry for Change @ Ottawa University
- Packaging Event: In the fall we held a packaging event through Stop Hunger Now for the students, faculty and community.
- Hunger Week: Each day of the week we had different ways to teach Ottawa University what we’re up against. These events included sidewalk chalking, food-waste weighing, writing letters to senators, a hunger banquet (through Oxfam), and more!
- Why Care? This past year we started a Why Care? campaign with HFC. We set up tables outside the cafeteria and involved students, faculty, and staff in sharing reasons for why they care about hunger.
- Canned Food Drive Competition: Each year we have a canned food drive competition between Ottawa University and Baker University. Cans are collected at the beginning of the fall semester and counted on the day of the Ottawa vs. Baker football game.
- Caroling for Cans Before leaving for Christmas break, HFC sends out carolers to collect cans for local food pantries and bless the locals with some Christmas spirit.
- Food Recovery: HFC has been working with local restaurants, the school cafeteria and churches to start up a recovery program to collect food that would otherwise be wasted and serve meals to the hungry in the Ottawa community.
- Back-Snacks: HFC works in conjunction with communities and schools to provide snack food for food-insecure students in the Ottawa district schools.
- Emergency Food Pantry (EFP): The EFP is an on-campus food pantry started by a group of four seniors this year at Ottawa University. It functions to benefit college students who are food-insecure.
- Empty Bowls: HFC works with Ottawa High School students to put on an Empty Bowls event each year. Students help by throwing bowls and adding them to a collection to be sold at the event. On the day of the event, community members are welcomed to choose from the bowls put on display and buy a bowl of soup along with it. Proceeds go to local food pantries.
We are very excited to keep the ball rolling and look forward to seeing what else we can accomplish this year!
HFC, we appreciate & thank you for your many hunger fighting endeavors.
(Originally posted Jul. 3, 2013)