Project AIDS Orphan Hunger Benefit Dinner

Please join Chris Cappock and friends at 5:30 p.m., Monday, June 27, at Immanuel Baptist Church, for a fabulous menu, interesting conversation and pleasant company! This could be your family’s most interesting culinary experience in a while.

Few experiences bring to life the inequalities in our world more powerfully than the Project AIDS Orphan Hunger Banquet event. You can experience firsthand how our decisions affect others in the world.

More than 925 million people – almost one in every six – suffer from hunger, a problem that will only get worse as climate change makes weather less predictable and farming more difficult. Women and children are often the hardest hit by hunger. In 2009 alone, hunger and malnutrition contributed to the death of more than 3 million children. No one should have to go hungry, and we have the tools to improve global food security.

Here’s how the Hunger Banquet works:

Guests draw tickets at random that assign them each to either a high-, middle-, or low-income tier–based on the latest statistics about the number of people living in poverty. Each income level receives a corresponding meal: the 15 percent in the high-income tier are served a sumptuous meal (chicken, rice and a salad) served by waiters at a decorated table; the 35 percent in the middle-income section eat a nutritious but simple meal (rice and beans) family style at their undecorated table; and the 50 percent in the low-income tier help themselves to small portions of lentils, rice and water – they eat on chairs or the floor. Guests can also assume characterizations that describe the situation of a specific person at the income level to which they’ve been assigned.

Last spring’s Hunger Banquet consisted of lentils and rice, chicken enchiladas and a steak dinner by Cynthia’s chef, Bill Gardner.

Finally, all guests are invited to share their thoughts after the meal.

Before the meal starts, there are videos or slide shows that depict life in the three separate and unequal tiers. Posters on the wall will show images relating to food production and consumption.

After a Hunger Banquet event, few participants leave with full stomachs, but all possess a greater understanding of the problems of hunger and poverty – and will feel motivated to do something about it.

Proceeds from this meal will benefit a feeding program in rural Kenya.

Tickets are available at the door; $10 per person, $30 for a family.

To volunteer, send a Facebook message to Chris Cappock!