With Thanksgiving just a week away, many students at Fairfield are looking forward to a turkey dinner with all the trimmings. However, most students don’t realize how the issue of world hunger hits so close to home – just down the road in Bridgeport.
World hunger is just that, a world issue. But like all world problems, the solution needs to begin at home, as addressed at a Hunger Summit that took place in the Barone Campus Center last Thursday.
Katie Waters ’08 echoed this sentiment, “Think globally, act locally.”
Fairfield students, faculty and staff came together with local leaders from area non-profits, places of worship and schools along with local and state government officials and businesses to take part in the Hunger Summit.
“The motivation behind hosting the Summit at Fairfield University was to have a chance for the University to work with outside groups who are ‘in the trenches’ each day working with the hungry,” said Jocelyn Collen, director of the Center for Faith and Public Life.
Collen explained that the mission of the Center for Faith and Public Life is to engage the Fairfield University community in a dialogue with the surrounding community about the role that faith plays in the public sector.
It also strives to mentor students in ways of thinking globally about our world and thinking about the “other.”
Town of Fairfield First Selectman Kenneth Flatto and Fairfield University President Fr. Jeffrey von Arx welcomed those assembled.
Others who addressed the participants were Sen. John McKinney and Merle Berke-Schlessel, CEO/president of the United Way.
The day was structured as a working session geared toward defining both short-term and long-term strategies for ending hunger as well as its causes. Despite the challenge that this problem presents, participants were hopeful that it is a conquerable feat.
“Our goals for the Summit were to bring people together who can work together to end hunger in our area. … I think that we won’t know if we were successful until more time has passed because we hope people will make changes we talked about at the Summit,” said Collen.
Students involved in the Summit were ambitious about their ability to defeat hunger in our community.
“Hunger is the one problem we can solve,” said Chris Staysniak ’10, a participant of the event and member of the Students for Social Justice club on campus, which helped put on this event. “It’s not a matter of when, but how.”
“People still don’t communicate the way they should, and it’s foolish,” he said.
“There are so many people in this affluent area who don’t have a roof over their head or food to eat, and we all need to be aware of that,” said Staysniak.
Collen finds students on campus to be very unaware of their surroundings.
“Many people do not even know that there is a homeless shelter in Fairfield,” said Collen.
Students came away from this event with a broader knowledge of what is going on in the world, both locally and abroad.
“The summit didn’t change my views on world hunger, but rather opened my eyes to the serious issues facing our neighboring city,” said Waters.
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