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Seven local teens are determined to do something about hunger -- both locally and around the world.
The teenagers, who attend Friends Congregational Church in College Station, are going without food for 30 hours this weekend to raise awareness and money to combat world hunger.
It doesn't take much, 18-year-old Anna Lindquist said Friday. A child in a developing country needs only $1 to have food for an entire day, she said.
Lindquist, who volunteers at local food pantries, said she sees people who are often hungry and knows that what she's doing won't change that.
"I'm just happy that it's a tangible thing that people can look at and say, 'I want to do my part.' So that makes me feel good," she said Friday.
The 30 Hour Famine is a national program sponsored by World Vision. The Friends Congregational Church teens are the only local group taking part in the campaign.
The teens will fast from Friday afternoon through Saturday night. After spending the night at the church and learning about world hunger, the students will participate in fundraising and educational activities Saturday. Their food donations will be given to a local food pantry, and money will be given to World Vision, organizers said.
By 6 p.m. Friday, Lindquist hadn't eaten in about five hours and had raised $490 for World Vision.
"I'm not hungry yet," she said.
According to World Vision, 840 million people go hungry around the world every day.
Brazos Valley Food Bank Executive Director Theresa Mangapora said an estimated 50,000 people in the Brazos Valley can't afford to eat three meals a day.
"These are people who are cutting back, stretching their dollars to buy less nutritious and cheaper food, who are skipping meals," she said, adding that about half of that number are children.
Many local groups help out at the food bank, Mangapora said. But there's always room for more awareness and more generosity.
"It's really a service learning opportunity when groups like these kids have things like this," she said. "It's not an easy thing to do. It's kind of a courageous thing for these young kids to do."
But they can't do it alone, Friends Congregational Church Pastor Dan De Leon said. Around the U.S., 30 Hour Famine participants last year raised $12 million. The local teens' donations will be just a drop in the bucket.
De Leon on Friday asked other churches and groups around Bryan-College Station to help out by hosting 30 Hour Famine programs for their youth.
For those who want to help, De Leon asked people to e-mail the church at office@friends-ucc.org.
Or, he said, people can go to www.30hourfamine.org for more information.
Lindquist said she hopes the fast helps people understand that they can make a difference.
"I hope that people realize that there are so many people that go without food every day and face enormous amount of struggles. We live in a world of excess, and it's really easy to overlook things," she said. "Most people here don't go without food for eight hours, but a lot of people go days."
