APO holds first annual hunger banquet

With Thanksgiving approaching, many people are envisioning dining room tables packed with giant turkeys and pies. This year however, Penn students may want to think about the meal disparities, both in nutritional value and portion size, that exist among the population of Philadelphia.

Last Saturday night, students and guests got a chance to participate in an interactive dinner at the first-ever Alpha Phi Omega Hunger Banquet in benefit of the University City Hospitality Coalition. The event mirrored real life. Participants were given tickets upon entry that assigned them to one of three social classes. Each group was associated with a certain meal that reflected its socioeconomic status — upper, middle or lower class. During the event, participants read the stories of characters they played and learned about how hunger influences the Philadelphia community.

The Penn Glee Club performed while guests ate, and keynote speakers Penn professor Mary Summers, Senior Fellow at the Fox Leadership Program, and Lee Ann Draud, meal coordinator at UCHC, shared insights with guests before participants discussed their experiences in small groups. At the end of the event, guests were treated to Shake Shack frozen custard and raffle winners were announced.

Wharton sophomore Alaya Mazon and College senior Cheyenne Rogers, fundraiser chairs of APO, had been planning for the event for the past four months. “We’re hoping to make this an annual thing. We’re hoping to grow it more and maybe expand our partnerships with people and make it more of a community initiative,” Rogers said.

UCHC is a local organization whose goal is to alleviate the struggle to accessing food, health care and basic needs that many around the world face, as well as to confront the realities of homelessness and hunger in West Philadelphia.

Guests sat either at tables, on chairs or on the floor and were given a meal of pasta and salad, rice and beans or rice, respectively. Like in real life, guests could not control which circumstances they were born into, nor did they have very much mobility to change their positions. 21 percent of guests sat at the table, 28 percent sat on chairs and 51 percent, the majority of the population, sat on the floor, illustrating the ratio of those who struggle to put dinner on the table.

Emcees College senior Kathy Han and Wharton senior Tyler Sullivan shared powerful statistics about hunger with the audience, stating that there are currently about 450,000 people living in poverty in Philadelphia.

“The world can produce more than enough food to adequately feed people. Hunger is really about power. Its roots lie in inequality and access to resources, so, with that, you have effects such as illiteracy, poverty, war, the inability of families to grow or buy food,” Sullivan said.

“Human rights are fundamental and nonnegotiable,” he added.

Attendees said they felt the evening was a success. “I really liked [the event],” College sophomore Emily Marucci said. “I think it’s a very efficient fundraiser ... It’s great that we’re able to learn about these issues.”

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