Last night, our entire Learning Community participated in an event called the “Oxfam Hunger Banquet. Honestly, going into this event I had no idea what it would be about. When I arrived, everyone received different colored cards and was told to sit at a specific table. I was a 40 year old middle class women, therefore I got to sit at the middle class table. As I looked around the room I noticed there was 2 tables set up with salads and soda, my table was not set but we were still seated at the table, and there was a large group of students sitting in a circle on the floor. When the banquet began the speakers shared stories of different types of people to show examples of the way people live. In my experience, they asked two people from the middle class table to stand up, and so I volunteered (thinking I might be bumped up to the higher class.) Well, I was wrong. After reading a scenario, I soon learned that I had lost my job and was bumped down to the lower class. So, I made my way to the floor along with the rest of the students sitting there. Later in the evening, we were finally allowed to eat. The higher class was allowed to eat their delicious salads and sip on sodas, the middle class was able to get up and walk over to the buffet and have some pasta with butter, bread, and water, and finally the lower class was only allowed to eat rice and beans from a cup.

This event was a huge eye-opener for me and got me to think a lot about everything I had. It also made me realize that in one moment and with one event your entire life can change. I finally was able to understand that I am so fortunate to have what I have because some people cannot even put a meal on their table and so they walk around hungry. Even though this event only consisted of a small group of Wagner students, I believe more people should attend an event like this because it is a real life example of how people live in the world today.