Today and Saturday, Great Bend students will fast so that hungry children may have food. The public is invited to help members of the Youth Workers Alliance break their fast Saturday evening with a meal and concert on the southeast lawn of the Heartland Center for Spirituality at 3600 Broadway Ave.
"We invite the community to join us," said Ashley Dowgwillo with Trinity Lutheran Church and the Youth Workers Alliance. "It is a free event, but we will also be taking a free-will offering." People may bring money or cans of food.
The meal starts at 6 p.m. and the concert, featuring McPherson band Evelyn, starts at 7.
Last year, Trinity Lutheran Church joined World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine, joining young people all over the nation in an effort to raise awareness and fight world hunger. This year the local sponsor is the Great Bend Youth Workers Alliance, which combines the forces of several church youth groups.
By going without food, they will get a taste of what the world’s poorest children and families face every day, Dowgwillo said. Prior to this event, students raised funds with the knowledge that every $30 they raise can help feed and care for a child for a month.
Funds raised here will be split between local projects, such as the food bank, and World Vision.
Participating youth will spend the 30 hours together, doing service projects in Great Bend, including volunteering at Meals on Wheels, The Daniel R. Trickey Life Giving Center and Hungry Heart Soup Kitchen. They’ll build a cardboard village on Friday and sleep on the convent lawn. They’ll also watch movies on poverty and hunger, Dowgwillo said.
According to information from World Vision, "hunger and preventable diseases claim the lives of 24,000 of the world’s children every day. More than 1 billion people go hungry every day. More than 6 billion live on the planet. One in six will go hungry tonight."
World Vision is a Christian humanitarian organization dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to reach their full potential by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice. World Vision serves all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender. For more information, visit www.worldvision.org.
