Hunger Awareness Walk
By Whitney Morris
Local people came together to walk for Homeless and Hunger Awareness week. Marmaduke, CRA, Paragould High, and Greene County Tech attended this event with over 100 students all together. The students marched around the courthouse in Paragould and then went to a church nearby to participate in poverty games and activities. In these games the students were put into a scenario where they had a family and went through the game with normal, everyday life problems. They had to buy groceries and pay bills and try to make it out with money left in the end. “It was kind of like a game of life,” FBLA sponsor Suzie Parks said. “I think it may have shed some light on reality because some were ready to give up but you couldn’t give up, and some talked about how it was so hard, but life itself is that way.”
“The Hunger Awareness, to me, is a program that informs every one of the families that go hungry each night in our community,” Sophomore Jordan Agee stated. “I ran a game that we played where I drove a bus and gave poor families transportation,” Agee also said. “Some families aren’t as fortunate as mine, and I’m lucky to have a roof over my head and food to eat. I met a lot of people who felt the same way as me.”
“We had a family act and we acted like we were poverty struck. I was in a family and I had to sell movie tickets to people for money. I had to help take care of my family,” Eighth grader Leah Holaway stated. “This walk showed me that people walking around may be poverty struck and we don’t even know it. Had I not gone to this event, I wouldn’t know what I do now.”
Being able to see first hand the effects of poverty can really open one’s eyes to what is going on in the world that is not even noticed by most people.
During the poverty game, Alex Gould and Heather Prince work as government agencies.