It was Helen Keller who said, "Alone we can do so little, together we can do so much." I recently used that great quote while speaking to a class at the College of Mount St. Joseph (MSJ).
The students there are going to help fight global hunger by playing FreeRice and walking Charity Miles as part of their Cincinnati Authors course. Ashley Eilers of the MSJ school paper reports on this service learning set up by Professor Jeff Hillard.
With FreeRice the students will be raising donations for the UN World Food Programme (WFP), the largest agency fighting hunger. The FreeRice donations will feed children in Niger, a country that suffered a severe drought and near famine last year. With Charity Miles, the free cell phone app that generates donations when you exercise, the students will help both WFP and Feeding America.
Every time you get a correct answer playing FreeRice the bowl fills up with rice donations that will go to the World Food Programme (author photo)
The Mount's Leadership Pathways program had a FreeRice event earlier this year. It was a student in last year's Cincinnati Authors class, Elizabeth Paff, whose enthusiasm put this plan in motion.
Paff did not have a cell phone with internet connectivity so she was unable to download and use the Charity Miles app. That did not stop her, though. She did her own form of Charity Miles, running and fundraising for Plumpy'nut to feed malnourished children. Since October we have raised donations for over 1,300 meals for Feeding America, the World Food Programme, and Edesia through our combined Charity Miles program.
Last week I ran to the Anderson Ferry Food Pantry in Delhi, Ohio. It's part of the Cincinnati Freestore Foodbank's network of agencies fighting hunger in the area. The Pantry is short on donations while they have seen an increase in demand, a familiar scene across the country, with over 50 million Americans food-insecure.
Article comments