Thirty students from grades seven through nine at Assumption School went hungry for 24 hours with the goal of raising money and awareness about poverty in Ecuador.
Assumption has participated in a stadium-sized inspirational We Day event for the past three years. The school’s social justice club plans one local and global event each year to qualify for tickets to attend We Day celebrations in Vancouver.
“It’s pretty cool to be inside of Rogers Arena with 20,000 kids who want to make a difference,” said teacher sponsor Elaine Cappiello. “It’s inspiring.”
This fall the club collected canned food for a Halloween food drive for their local initiative. For their global initiative the club has been collecting pledges for the 24-hour famine and conducting a penny drive. Their goal is to collect $1,000 to help fund projects that will bring clean drinking water and education to children in Ecuador.
“The whole idea is for the students to understand what it’s like to feel that hunger,” said Cappiello. “It gives them that practical experience.”
They started their fast after lunch on Friday, May 10, and did not eat until Saturday afternoon. Students were allowed only water to drink. They camped out in the school gymnasium that night and participated in fun activities to pass the time. They had a volleyball tournament and played the flashlight tag game Mission Impossible. They also watched a movie.
“I always heard about the poor kids in Africa,” said grade nine student Teiva Castagnoli. “I never actually knew what it was like to go hungry for a night.”
This is Teiva’s third time to do a 24-hour famine and he thinks it’s “good mentally and physically to understand how kids feel when they go without food.”
Teiva said that it always surprises him when he finishes. “That I’ve been complaining way too much about what I ‘need,’” he added.
Student body president Sydney Spenst said the event is “really beneficial for helping out and bringing our community together.”
Last year Cappiello said the students participated in a water walk where students had to carry water for a few kilometres to discover what it would be like to not have running water in their homes.
She heard about Free the Children, the organization that hosts We Day, “quite a few years ago” and she decided to spearhead events at the school. Free the Children is an international charity and youth movement founded by Canadian brothers Craig and Marc Kielburger in 1995. Its motto is “children helping children” and it specializes in raising money for sustainable development projects in Ecuador, Ghana, Haiti, Kenya, Nicaragua, Sierra Leone, India and rural China.
One of the benefits to the organization is that students can experience the positive effect that they have on others.
“It’s awesome,” said Cappiello. “It’s another form of education.”
