Eastern students and community members traveled the world and experienced the hunger of different social classes.

The Newman Catholic Center and the Haiti Connection held their 24th annual hunger banquet “Hunger Banquet 2011: Food for Thought” on Tuesday.

Jennifer Prillaman, a political science and French major and the chair of the hunger banquet committee, said the event was meant to bring the problems of world hunger to the attention of Eastern students.

“It’s an awareness raiser,” Prillaman said. “In the past decade, hunger in the world has actually been rising. Despite all the technology and everything we can do, hunger is rising.”

Prillaman said they would present many facts about hunger in both the world, as well as in the United States.

“There is hunger in every single county of the United States,” Prillaman said.

She said many people think that ending world hunger is overused.

“It is a huge issue,” Prillaman said. “Sometimes it seems like a cliché, like ‘Oh yes, world hunger. What you want to save the planet and end world hunger?’ But this is not a cliché, it is an injustice.”

As students entered the basement of the Newman Catholic Center, they received a passport with an identity that they would act as for the event. These identities ranged from rich to lower class families, some single and some with a number of children.

Then students were given fake money and were tasked with providing food for each member of their family.

“If you are a French couple on a cruise, you are going to have a lot of money, so you can just go to the restaurant,” Prillaman said. “But if you are a family from Somalia, you only have $3.”

Prilliman said all of the identities were given out randomly.

“We are randomly born where we are, people randomly get an identity that they might not know,” Prilliman said. “Hopefully it’s transformative, hopefully they go away with wanting to help or at least be more aware.”

Yuu Suehiro, a junior elementary education major, and Nicole Biernat, a junior family and consumer sciences major, took on the role of a lower class Cambodian family.

Suehiro and Biernat received $10 to feed the both of them.

“Once you are put into someone else’s shoes, you realize how well off we are,” Biernat said.

Suehiro said she plans to donate more because of the experience.

“We take for granted the food that is available to us,” Suehiro said.

Tania Moskaluk-Vucsko, a sophomore English major, and Gabrielle Lohr, a sophomore communication studies major, were a part of a six people lower-class family from China that received $12.

Moskaluk-Vucsko said she found it hard to choose what to buy.

“It’s unfair to choose which people will go hungry and who doesn’t,” Moskaluk-Vucsko said.

Lohr said she didn’t expect the experience she received.

“I thought it would be an actual meal where they would tell us about the issues,” Lohr said. “I didn’t expect them to give us a family and make us fend for ourselves.”

A second dinner will take place. Those who attended the hunger banquet could take a box and put in money and during the dinner they will turn in the box and everyone will sit down and eat a fair meal.

“While some will leave hungry tonight, no one will leave hungry from this dinner,” Prilliman said.

The second dinner will take place at 6:30 p.m. Nov. 15 at the Newman Catholic Center.

“We want people to leave and think, not just leave,” Prilliman said.

Samantha McDaniel can be reached at 581-2812 or slmcdaniel@eiu.edu.