Oak Forest HS DECA Club Hosts Oxfam Hunger Banquet

Freshman Alyssa Meyers is served her lunch of rice and beans. Alyssa was part of a role play in which she was playing the working middle class at the Oxfam Hunger Banquet, held recently in the OFHS Instructional Materials Center (IMC).

The DECA Marketing Club hosted an Oxfam Hunger Banquet and Marketing members Yosra Abdulwahid and Reneen Allan served as emcees and local champions for the event in an attempt to bring hunger awareness to their fellow students. In addition to the Hunger Banquet, the students organized a food drive at the high school, running throughout November and December. DECA Club Sponsor Katie Gomez said, “I am honored to have such dedicated and selfless students who took an idea and ran with it. This event is student-run and is a true club effort and school collaboration; I am thankful to have such wonderful students working together and giving of their own time to make a difference.”

Participating in the event were Mrs. Kristina Blair’s FCCLA students and Mr. Ed Lipowski’s AP Human Geography classes. “It ties in with human geography,” said Mr. Lipowski. “The class itself is about understanding the differences of cultures and different situations of people around the world. And the world doesn't always look like we do and this is a good way for my students to understand what it looks like in different places.”

The banquet simulated the reality of world hunger by assigning roles to students and serving food based on their economic situation. Students did not know what category they were assigned until they arrived. DECA Club members assisted in the group role-play event by assigning role play cards to all attendees upon entering. Some students sat at tables to emulate the privileged, others sat on chairs which emulated the working middle class, and some students sat on the floor, which represented being poor. Each group was served a different food. The privileged group was served pasta with a side salad and a roll, the working middle class group was served rice and beans with an eating utensil, and the poor were served rice that they had to eat with their hands.

Freshman Emily Tibbett thought about her role as a working middle class person. She compared the food inequity between classes. She said, “I think this stinks. It’s not right and it is not equal. But I feel worse for others in the poor class because they don’t get utensils. A lot of people take [our food] for granted.” Freshman Attii-Ammii Laloyo agreed. In this exercise, he was assigned the role of a privileged person. He said, “As a privileged person I feel a little guilty. I feel like I should be able to do something for those less fortunate than I. [If in this circumstance], I would raise money to help buy food for the less fortunate.” Yosra Abdulwahid said, “We hope attending students left this event with knowledge about the global issue of hunger and can start to make a difference in our community - one bite at a time."