Hunger Banquet provides perspective

Eight people were served a three-course meal.

A slightly larger group ate pizza.

But most of those who attended the Students Together Ending Poverty club’s annual Hunger Banquet on Wednesday evening at Utah State University received a small serving of beans and rice.

The inequitable arrangement was intended to provide guests a tangible example of the nature of global poverty.

“The purpose of STEP is to raise awareness of the global and local poverty that exists around the world and here in Logan,” said club director Sarah Menlove.

Poverty, she said, exists everywhere. “It just takes a little effort on your part to take advantage of opportunities to help,” she said.

That point wasn’t missed by Menlove’s parents, who attended the event to support her. Her father, Drew Menlove, was assigned to the wealthy class while his wife was assigned to the middle class. He said he wished he could trade places with her.

“I feel a little guilty that she is there and I’m here,” Drew Menlove said.

He said people who eat well should recognize how fortunate they really are.

“I always tell my children 'be grateful life's not fair,' because you're on the good side of not fair,” Drew Menlove said.

When it comes to dealing with poverty, Sarah Menlove said, all it takes is one person to make a difference.

As people ate, Sustainable Cambodia board of directors member Paul Stringham spoke about his organization’s efforts to help end poverty and hunger in rural Cambodia, where two-thirds of the nation’s 1.6 million rural households face season food shortages every year, according to the International Fund for Agricultural Development.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, about 870 million people in the world do not have enough to eat. And while that number has fallen from more than a billion in the past two decades, progress on ending global hunger has slowed since 2008.

The event, which was held in the Evan N. Stevenson Ballroom in the Taggart Student Center, also included a West African drumming and dance performances.

Tricia Olson, McCarty Hatfield, Rhys Stephens, Brooke Larsen and Landon Graham contributed to this article.