30 Hour Famine World Vision

We often hear about how many problems that adolescents have in this day, problems with substance abuse, teen pregnancy,sexually transmitted diseases and educational failures so I would like to talk about something positive that many youth engaged in over the weekend. World Vision, a christian charitable organization ,sponsors each a 30 hour famine for middle school and high school age teens. Across the country young people participate in this activity which is designed to raise awareness of global poverty and provide the youth an opportunity to do something to make a difference.We had over 100 teens participate this year at our church. It is a yearly event that we have been participating in for some time now.

So what is the 30 hour famine? The youth spend the weekend together and fast for 30 hours to get some sense of what it is like for many that go hungry. During the weekend they participate in activities that both help the community as well doing awareness related activities. This year they made sandwiches for the homeless, refugee welcome baskets, worked at program that feeds the homeless and collected food for one of the local food banks. Afterwards they raise money for different projects. This year their goal was $7,500 dollars to buy insecticide treated mosquito netting for beds to give to the World Vision sponsored group End Malaria which is dedicated to the goal of eradicating malaria. The youth learned that 2,000 children die each day from malaria. The past two years they provided aid to two villages in Zambia to build wells for a clean water supply. Two years ago they had the neat experience of being able to talk with someone from the village they were working with by satellite phone.

So, kudos to all the youth across the country who participated in the 30 hour famine.

For information World Vision is accredited by the EFCA, the evangelical counsel for financial accountability which require programs to provide full financial disclosure to anyone who wants it including a financial breakdown of each project they are involved in.