Over 170 student volunteers gathered in Alumni Gym on Sept. 6 to package more than 21,000 meals for people facing food insecurity and malnutrition around the world. The annual event is held in partnership with Rise Against Hunger and Elon University’s Kernodle Center for Civic Life.
According to Rise Against Hunger event facilitators, about 673 million people worldwide face hunger and 2.3 billion face food insecurity. About 8.2% of the world’s population is undernourished or malnourished.
Michaila Minto, an event facilitator with Rise Against Hunger, said volunteering is an important way to give back to the community.
“It opens your mind and your heart,” Minto said. “It’s part of being a good person. It’s not enough to say you’re a good person, you have to show people, and part of that is volunteering and helping those that are less fortunate than you.”
From left to right: Julia Edler, Isabella Johnson, Allie Mateyak, and Bilal Turner pour ingredients into meal bags on Sept. 6.
Building awareness of world hunger and engaging volunteers is one of four pathways Rise Against Hunger uses to achieve its mission of ending global hunger. The other three pathways are encouraging education through school feeding and health clinics, deploying food and aid to conflict and disaster relief zones, and promoting improvements in agricultural production and rural livelihoods.
“Food is a safe cause,” Minto said. “It doesn’t matter what religion or what background, as humans we all have to eat. We might eat different things but we all have to eat.”
Elon senior Megan DeMarco is the director of Elon’s Campus Kitchen, an organization that prepares meals using fresh produce from Loy Farm and delivers them to local communities in need. DeMarco said she hopes events like Rise Against Hunger will help students get engaged with other campus volunteer experiences.
“It’s a really good way to get involved at the beginning of the year,” DeMarco said. “It lets us tell people about food insecurity, and that really affects the Elon area. So we try to do these big events where we can hopefully get people to do our smaller events like Campus Kitchen.”
According to Feeding America, 1 in 7 people in North Carolina face hunger and almost 27% of them are children. In Alamance County, the food insecurity rate is over 15%, and only 34% of residents are above the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, threshold.
Sophomore Alyssa Adams heard about Rise Against Hunger through Elon’s Black Student Union, but had been looking for volunteer opportunities in general on Elon’s campus.
“When I was back home, I did a lot of volunteer events with my family and I’ve been trying to find a service community that’s right for me at Elon,” Adams said. “I discovered Rise Against Hunger through BSU and this is my first time doing it and I absolutely love it.”
She encouraged other students to volunteer and benefit their community.
“Don’t be afraid to get out there and help volunteer,” Adams said. “If you have the time, you can do it. It’s for a good cause and you’re going to love yourself.”
Minto had a similar message for students. Boxes that were packaged at the event held 216 meals each — enough for one child for an entire school year. Minto emphasized that what may seem like a small effort can have a large impact.
“Ghandi said, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’ and this is one of the ways you can be that change,” Minto said.