Grand Valley State University students, faculty and staff members will have the opportunity to attend a hunger banquet to bring awareness for people in poverty and people who are food-insecure Thursday, Nov. 17. It will take place from 8:30 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Holton-Hooker Learning and Living Center’s Multipurpose Room.

GVSU’s Community Service Learning Center (CSLC) and Oxfam, a new club at GVSU, came together to put on the event. The banquet is being held to reflect the theme of ‘hunger and homelessness’ month at GVSU. Brianna Miranda, vice president of Oxfam at GVSU and a CSLC member, hopes around 100 students and faculty will be in attendance.

“I think students can be wrapped up in their own lives,” Miranda said. “They need to step outside to see other things society is facing and why it’s happening. Students should ask, ‘What can I do to eliminate hunger?’ This event is to help them put things in perspective.”

The banquet will start by splitting students into three class-divided groups. The “lower class group,” will be given a bowl of rice to eat and share, and will consist of about half the participants. However, the “middle class group,” will be given rice, beans and other foods in a buffet style.

About 20 percent of the students will be in the “upper class group,” and will be given finer quality food, including being waited on. The hope is that students will see what the less fortunate groups have to eat, and that will be a great way to display hunger, Miranda said.

“This event is important, not all students think of poverty on a daily basis,” said Kaitlyn Henderson, the president of Oxfam of GVSU.

One-third of people live in poverty, that’s over 2.2 billion people, Henderson said. She explained how forming the groups would hopefully allow students to reflect on what they have in life, juxtaposed with those who have little. She continued saying that by looking through someone else’s perspective, it would change the students’ view on poverty.

“To hear their (people in poverty) voices, stories and by talking to them, we can make them louder,” Henderson said. “We need to be a louder voice for those with less privileges.”

Henderson helped the hunger banquet gain a lot of momentum, and will also be speaking after the dinner concludes. Following the dinner, guests will have a discussion with Henderson and form into different groups. These groups will talk about some of the statistics of poverty and converse on how, or if, their perspective changed at all.

“We want students to be engaged with the community,” Miranda said. “We want them realizing things are out there and to ask, ‘What can I do? What do you need from me?'”