5th Annual Oxfam America Hunger Banquet

WHAT: Join UIS during National Hunger & Homelessness Awareness Week for a powerful two-part exploration of poverty, featuring Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger and author of the book All You Can Eat. Stay for the Oxfam Hunger Banquet, and experience a taste of the incredible human suffering still being caused by hunger in the United States and abroad.

WHEN: Monday, November 16, 2009 from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m.
Registration begins at 4:30p.m.

WHERE: Student Life Building (SLB) Gym on the UIS campus

DETAILS: With the biting wit of Supersize Me and the passion of a lifelong activist, Joel Berg has his eye on the growing number of people who are forced to wait in lines at food pantries across the nation-the modern breadline. All You Can Eat reveals that hunger is a problem as American as apple pie, and shows what it is like when your income is not enough to cover rising housing and living costs and put food on the table. Berg takes to task politicians who remain inactive; the media, which ignores hunger except during holidays and hurricanes; and the food industry, which makes fattening, artery-clogging fast food more accessible to the nation’s poor than healthy fare.

The Hunger Banquet and presentation are free and open to the public. Participants are encouraged to bring canned goods to donate towards the UIS Holiday Stars Project benefiting Central Illinois Foodbank.

The Hunger Banquet will be emceed by former television anchor Julie Staley from the Staley Foundation.

For more information on the Oxfam Hunger Banquet contact Kelly Thompson, Volunteer and Civic Engagement Center Director at 217/206-8448 or kthom03s@uis.edu.