Preparing: Hunger Banquet

---

Wow! The hunger banquet was a success! It came after a lot of hard work! Christine and I originally decided to go to India over a year ago. We were hanging out and sharing our passion for languages and cultures. We discussed what we wanted to do and both of us said to go to India and do service for our global community. One year later, we were putting together this hunger banquet and planning this incredible trip!

Christine came up with the idea of the hunger banquet and it was a great one! When people arrived, they were given a ticket. This ticket identified their role for the evening. The roles were divided amont three groups
- 20% of the world's population is "rich" - that means they make over $10,000 per year (!!!!!)
- 30% of the world's population is "middle class" - that means they make between $900 and $10,000 per year
- and 50% of the world's population is "lower class," making less than $900 per YEAR.

Pretty amazing and pretty humbling when you see it this way. In the hunger banquet, we offered the rich people a full course dinner (way too much to eat) and full service. To the middle class, we offered a buffet, and to the poor, we said they could only have the rice and lentils--and they were lucky! Luckily, the rich decided to share, so we all enjoyed the lovely food.

This food had been donated by Clay Pitt and Swad Vegetarian restaurant. It was a lovely meal of curries, vegetables, and samosas. Yum!

We had a silent auction and played music. Mike entertained us on the Gu-Zheng. I played the recorder and Indian flute. And Christine sang songs of peace and social awareness.

At the end of the evening, we had raised $2500, which increased to $3000 in the weeks after. We thank everyone so much for their contributions! It is going to go a long way in a country that needs so much.

We will be volunteering with the Missionaries of Charity, Mother Theresa's charity.

Want to see a sample of what we'll do? Read the article in the following link
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/26/asia/26calcutta.php

Namaste,
Ron & Christine

---

Photos

Mike the Musician
Thanks, Mike, for contributing your music to the event!