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30 Hour Famine

muffinman

muffinman

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jun 1, 2005
394
0
San Diego, California
Hey all.

Well, my friend and I are currently organizing our school's 30 Hour Famine.

Basically, what we do, is starve for 30 hours to get the feeling of what it is like to starve- something that millions of children and adults have to go through everyday. The students who participate (about 40 right now) go around their neighborhood and ask for donations. This year, the money goes to Nigeria and the Darfur Province in Sudan.

The 30 Hour Famine is run by World Vision, a leading humanitiarian work organization. Our group's goal is 20 thousand dollars. This might seem nearly impossible, but with donations from caring individuals, this can succeed.

My purpose of posting this is to ask the members of macrumors to donate what they can towards this. Any amount can help. A dollar feeds a child for a day. 30 dollars feeds a child for a month, while 360 dollars feeds a child for a year. The donation is tax deductible, and will go straight towards feeding children around the globe.

Our website is here. Feel free to learn more about this on our website. Please help those less fortunate than us.
 
School? Maybe I'm british but that makes you sound young. young+starving=not very good at all. We had a 24 hour fast at our school back in Year 5 (about 10 years old, I think). 3 girls passed out.

I'd like to add though, I find the feeling of hunger changes dramatically depending on what you do. If I'm bazzing around on Photoshop or something monotonous on my mac then I don't feel tired or hungry. If I'm out walking around town then I get peckish faster.

Anyways good luck. But if you really wanted to make a difference then give half your earnings to charity every day. Sure you'd probably be on the bread line but it makes a world of difference to people staving in other countries. I dunno, I find that people treat charity as a sort of "extra". after their own spendings on clothes, games machines, iPods then those remaining few pennies go to charity. It's like you wake up in the morning "oh I feel like giving a little to charity today" when these people are hungry and need help everyday.
 
raggedjimmi said:
School? Maybe I'm british but that makes you sound young. young+starving=not very good at all. We had a 24 hour fast at our school back in Year 5 (about 10 years old, I think). 3 girls passed out.
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Well, we are sophmores, juniors, and seniors in high school. That may seem young to a lot of people, but we are old enough to see the seriousness in world poverty. I'm sure fasting will for 30 hours will be fine. I did this last year, and nothing went wrong. We will be drinking of water and juices though.

raggedjimmi said:
Anyways good luck. But if you really wanted to make a difference then give half your earnings to charity every day. Sure you'd probably be on the bread line but it makes a world of difference to people staving in other countries. I dunno, I find that people treat charity as a sort of "extra". after their own spendings on clothes, games machines, iPods then those remaining few pennies go to charity. It's like you wake up in the morning "oh I feel like giving a little to charity today" when these people are hungry and need help everyday.
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Very true. It is so hard to not fall in love for these material goods. Yet, we are going to try to further better humanity.

Again, here is our website. http://www.ljhsfamine.com

Thank you
 
Wait, isn't it the "40 Hour Famine"??

That's what World Vision do here, must be different over there.
 
raggedjimmi said:
But if you really wanted to make a difference then give half your earnings to charity every day. Sure you'd probably be on the bread line but it makes a world of difference to people staving in other countries. I dunno, I find that people treat charity as a sort of "extra". after their own spendings on clothes, games machines, iPods then those remaining few pennies go to charity. It's like you wake up in the morning "oh I feel like giving a little to charity today" when these people are hungry and need help everyday.
Click to expand...

So is your signature a list of what you've donated to charity?




Muffinman - good luck with your event.
 
I think World Vision does a 40 Hour Famine in Canada, Australia, and other countries outside of the US. In America, I guess they decided Americans couldn't do 40 hours, so they lowered it to 30. :D

Well, thanks for all the support. I have been planning this for 3 months now, and it has been rough. I went around with my friends, asking buisnesses for donations and food (for the dinner afterwards), and for activities. Only Vons has given us stuff (Thanks Vons! :)), and all the other businesses have only said the usual, "we have to talk to the management" which takes about a month, and then they say,...sorry.

Well, now I appreciate the people who formulate these events a lot more.

Thanks for the feedback. Feel free to donate. ;)

http://www.ljhsfamine.com
 
I'm sorry, but fasting for 30 hours isn't starving yourself. You'r fasting for a little bit over a day. It's not that hard. If they want to know then eat half a cup of rice a day for 3 months. Then, I'll be impressed. Good luck with the fundraising, though.
 
Yeah, we Aussie are tough. :D

Good luck with everything, I know how hard it is to organise things like this. I've found a good way of getting support from businesses is writing a letter (you can use the same letter for each one, just change the address etc) that explains everything, and send it directly to all of the businesses you want help from. They seem to pay more attention to letters.
 
OnceUGoMac said:
I'm sorry, but fasting for 30 hours isn't starving yourself. You'r fasting for a little bit over a day. It's not that hard. If they want to know then eat half a cup of rice a day for 3 months. Then, I'll be impressed. What was the point of the "starvation" again?
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To raise money for charity. :rolleyes:

Granted it's not the same as living in a third world country, but its a way of getting people to begin appreciating how good they've got it and also raise some money for charity at the same time.
 
max_altitude said:
Yeah, we Aussie are tough. :D

Good luck with everything, I know how hard it is to organise things like this. I've found a good way of getting support from businesses is writing a letter (you can use the same letter for each one, just change the address etc) that explains everything, and send it directly to all of the businesses you want help from. They seem to pay more attention to letters.
Click to expand...

Yeah, we sent out letters with our school's letterhead, with the Tax ID number so buisnesses could get tax deductible refunds.

OnceUGoMac said:
I'm sorry, but fasting for 30 hours isn't starving yourself. You'r fasting for a little bit over a day. It's not that hard. If they want to know then eat half a cup of rice a day for 3 months. Then, I'll be impressed. What was the point of the "starvation" again?
Click to expand...

Well, fasting for 30 hours gives us a small taste (no pun intended) of what if feels like to be starving. If you have ever gone without food for a day, you will know the cramping pains and migraines that one gets. Eating a half a cup of rice of day for 3 months is possible, but not plausible for a group of 40 high schoolers who have finals 2 weeks after. That might sound like a lame excuse, but it just isnt plausible to starve like that here.

donate here. http://www.ljhsfamine.com
 
I LOVE world vision. Every dollar that doesn't go to feed me goes to world vision or NREP (american) National Rape Evidence Project out of Atlanta GA.

Thanks for everyone's participation!
 
Peyton said:
I LOVE world vision. Every dollar that doesn't go to feed me goes to world vision or NREP (american) National Rape Evidence Project out of Atlanta GA.

Thanks for everyone's participation!
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That's very generous of you.
 
max_altitude said:
To raise money for charity. :rolleyes:

Granted it's not the same as living in a third world country, but its a way of getting people to begin appreciating how good they've got it and also raise some money for charity at the same time.
Click to expand...

I don't want to be an ass and be one of those people who give things like this a hard time, but in a way I do agree that a 30/40 hour famine is quite pointless. Just donate money to charity and be done with it.

In this sort of charity drive, the only people who are going to "being appreciating how good they've got it" are the people who were already convinced before the famine --- the people who cared about this issue already, so you're really not convincing anyone new. It's impossible to make OTHER people --- the people who don't care about this or never gave it much thought --- gain an understanding of how it would feel to starve for 30/40 hours if you are the one doing it. The people who already care don't need convincing.

Despite the fact that it doesn't make any sense to me, good luck with it. I do like it when people try to help. :)
 
Abstract said:
In this sort of charity drive, the only people who are going to "being appreciating how good they've got it" are the people who were already convinced before the famine --- the people who cared about this issue already, so you're really not convincing anyone new. It's impossible to make OTHER people --- the people who don't care about this or never gave it much thought --- gain an understanding of how it would feel to starve for 30/40 hours if you are the one doing it. The people who already care don't need convincing.
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I think the idea is not only does it create publicity, and therefore interest in the event, but it also goves people something to sponsor - a bit like sponsoring someone to run a marathon. I remember people doing famine things at school, and the idea is your granny (or whoever) would sponsor you 50p an hour, and so if you did the whole thing she'd give £15. If you were running a marathon people would give you £1 a mile, or whatever. People are more willing to give more to someone who's putting themselves out for charity, and if you asked the same people just to donate you'd be lucky to get a fiver.
 
I agree with those who say that it's not going to give you any idea of what it feels like to starve. 30 hours isn't even enough to get to the light-headedness let alone beyond that.

But good on you for recognising the problem and wanting to do something to help. When it comes to businesses, it can be better to go for local mom+pop stores rather than the big multi-nationals who probably donate at a national rather than local level.

I'm assuming that any money you (or your family) would have spent on food that day is being donated to the cause? Perhaps you should ask those sponsoring you to either join in (and collect alongside you) or to donate the amount of money they will spend on food that day... it's a way to focus the mind.
 
Wow. It never ceases to amaze me that even when talking about donating to charity, people could STILL find something negative about it. First off, 30 hours w/o food to you might be a breeze, to others it may not. It is case dependant, such as likes and dislikes. If even one person can more deeply appreciate how good they have it then I believe it is worth all the effort. It shows people actually trying to do something good, rather than sitting on high and judging. Kudos to you, Muffinman. Some people talk the talk, while you walk the walk. There should be more like you.
 
^^Well in my defence, I'm going on a 5 km charity walk tomorrow. I know this seems similar to a 30 hour famine, but famine charities don't usually gain much publicity since most people who do them happen to be high school and uni students, and they're not doing it in a public space.

In the case of the walk, anyone passing by will see the signs, or at least the jumping castle they have in the park. :p
 
Applespider said:
I'm assuming that any money you (or your family) would have spent on food that day is being donated to the cause? Perhaps you should ask those sponsoring you to either join in (and collect alongside you) or to donate the amount of money they will spend on food that day... it's a way to focus the mind.
Click to expand...

yes we are doing that. about 40 students wil bring in 20 dollars each (800 dollars) for the money they would have spent on food for those 30 hours. along with that money comes the donations that they have collected. most people have made a personal goal of 360$, which feeds a kid for a year. 360 times 40 = 14400 dollars. plus the 800 dollars= 15200. and then we are hoping some people will get more than the 360 dollars.
 
I tried to do this one year, but I'm medically in-able to, if I went that long without eating I'd end up in the hospital.

(I have a blood sugar disorder.)
 
Our church did this a while ago. We got our youth group together and raise about $1000 for the event.

We did ours as an all night lock in at the church. IT started on a friday night and by sunday morning we were done and we had a nice breakfst waiting for us when we got up at about 7.
 
That's awesome you're planning this!
I did this last year, and I'm planning to participate again this year, but I'm sure organizing for a whole school is tough. Good luck with that, and I commend you. :)
World Vision is great. And yes, we Americans are lazy for only doing 30 hours. ;) Haha, it is sort of interesting how that worked out though....
 
i don't understand what needs to be financed... if anything you're saving money. you're not eating.

i understand you're donating to charity but that last comment makes it sound like you're just digging for money here.
 
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