Ethical Citizens for Action hosts hunger banquet at UW-River Falls

Ethical Citizens for Action, a new organization at UW-River Falls, will be hosting a hunger banquet 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. April 22, in the St. Croix room of the University Center. Hunger banquets are formed to create awareness of hunger and poverty.

Ethical Citizens for Action is an organization of students bringing awareness to the community about equality. Ethical Citizens for Action member Sadie Mensinger said the most rewarding thing about being in the organization is the action.

“We don’t just sit around and talk about it. We actually do something. The emphasis is about what we are going to do and that is inspiring,” Mensinger said.

President of Ethical Citizens for Action Joshua Lambert said his vision for the Ethical Citizens for Action is “sponsoring and staffing events, promoting a general awareness campaign for equality and creating a mission broad enough to tackle a wide range of issues.”

Lambert said he is hoping 50 people will show up to the hunger banquet. The hunger banquet is free and open to anyone in the community. The hunger banquet was funded by UWRF and Sodexo will be providing the food.

As participants eat, there will be presentations and literature from Oxfam.org passed around. Oxfam is an organization promoting poverty awareness. The participants will be randomly divided into three groups.

One group will only have around seven people and they will receive a full meal. The second group will receive rice and beans and the last group will only be provided with rice, Lambert said.

“This is to represent how food is split up in the economy,” Lambert said. 

The UWRF hunger banquet will be the first event held by Ethical Citizens for Action and was the idea of Vice President of Ethical Citizens for Action, Therese Selin.

Selin said she had heard about a hunger banquet hosted at UWRF four years ago by Campus and Community Fighting Hunger and Homelessness (CCFHH) and thought it would be a great idea to do it again. The CCFHH organization no longer exists.

“One of the things we can do is pick up where they [CCFHH] left off,” Selin said.

Ethical Citizens for Action will also be taking over Volunteer Day from CCFHH. It will be held from 8 a.m. to noon April 18. Students can meet on the lawn in front of the University Center. The volunteer day is to bring students together and volunteer at different places in the community.

“Students may feel strongly about an issue but don’t know where to go with it. This organization is an outlet where people can get together with like-minded people who want to make a change,” Selin said.

Ethical Citizens for Action just started this spring. If students want to join they can look up the Facebook group, Ethical Citizens for Action, for information, Selin said.

“I hope we can accomplish getting the word out for the banquet,” Lambert said. “And also get the word out about the organization.”