SKIP a MEAL CHALLENGE!

The Lorain County Community College Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) are presenting you with an opportunity to do something for others on November 29th. We Challenge all community members and local businesses to participate in a Skip a Meal event on Thursday, November 29, 2007.

Campbell Soup Company challenged all SIFE Teams throughout the country to create a Stamp Out Hunger project to help people less fortunate this Thanksgiving season. In response to this, the LCCC SIFE Team sponsored an Oxfam hunger awareness banquet on our campus, November 14th in which community members, business owners and local government leaders attended including Commissioner Ted Kalo and Ms. Judy Skillicorn, Senator Sherrod Brown's representative. Each guest was asked to donate two cans of food to the Ford Motor Company - LCCC SIFE Food Drive.

The evening's host was LCCC alumni and motivational speaker, Mr. Rodger Campbell from Bad Bad Apples. During this interactive event, guests learned that forty percent of the people on our planet - more than 2.5 billion - live in poverty, struggling to survive on less than $2 a day. In every nation on earth, people go to sleep hungry even though our planet produces enough food to feed every woman, man, and child. Guests experienced what a typical meal in these households consists of and how quickly one's position in life can change. Following the dinner, an open discussion was held to allow the guests to talk about their experience and how they felt. Guests also experienced "World AID" at the end of the meal, those who experienced poverty got to see how it felt to receive what they needed the most.

To further continue with our project, the LCCC SIFE Team is asking that each of us take one day to respond to those in need. We are asking everyone from community members to local businesses to skip a lunch on November 29th and donate the proceeds to one of three of our selected organizations/projects. These recipients were selected based on their mission of helping to provide individuals the education and training required to improve their lives.

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" Nelson Mandela

Now, we are giving the community the opportunity to give "World Aid" to someone in need.

  1. Oxfam America is an international relief and development organization that creates lasting solutions to poverty, hunger, and injustice in over 25 countries around the world. Oxfam saves lives, helps people overcome poverty, and fights for social justice. Of the 1.2 billion people who live in extreme poverty worldwide, 70 percent are women and girls. Systematic gender discrimination—the denial of women's basic human rights—is a major cause of poverty. When people are blocked from opportunity, they often need to change laws, customs, and policies. Without these changes, real progress against poverty cannot be achieved. Oxfam's economic and political analysis helps them change the minds of powerful decision makers. Oxfam is working to change the world.
  2. George Jones Farm is a local organization in Oberlin, Ohio that provides education and training to low income people. Through a partnership with Heifer International, they are utilizing the Jones Farm in Oberlin as a training and educational center for developing small-scale agricultural production systems, appropriate to cities or small farms. Through the support of the Ohio Farmers Union Cooperative Development program, they re-organized the Jones Farm as a cooperative enterprise in 2006. The farm features several inter-linked agrarian enterprises, including an apiary, a free-range livestock operation, a vegetable garden, a mushroom operation, composting, an herb garden, and a student-run market garden. Training people to grow their own food can put food on the table for a low income family. www.georgejonesfarm.org
  3. LCCC SIFE Leadership Ladder is a student created international project that will teach 8th grade girls in South Africa, the personal success skills they need to become leaders in their communities. The funds donated to this project will be used to implement the program and to award Ambassador Girls' Scholarships to some of the girls. LCCC SIFE's goal is to be able to provide at least five scholarships this year at a cost of $256.00 per student. Education can change people's lives!

How can you get involved?

Gather together with your friends, family members and/or colleagues and decide to skip your lunch on November 29th. Save the funds that you would normally have paid for your lunch that day to donate to one of the causes mentioned above. Identify on your check which cause you would like your donation to be applied toward. Think of the impact this challenge will have if every group or company were to raise just $50.

Send your donations to: Ms. Emma Cumming, LCCC SIFE c/o Student Life, Lorain County Community College, 1005 N. Abbe Rd., Elyria, OH 44035.

Please remember to notate which organization you would like your donation to be applied to: Oxfam, George Jones Farm or Leadership Ladder. Make your checks payable to LCCC SIFE.

Be creative. Challenge your neighbor, your competition, or your friends to do something different for those who are trying to better their lives through education and training. Give the gift of a better future for those in our own community as well as those around the world.