Hunger Awareness Group & Thanksgiving Food Drive

            The formation of the Hunger Awareness Group (HAG) officially started in August of 2005, but the group’s work had already been done for two years beforehand. It started in November of 2003 when the Youth Ministry, in which I am part of the core planning team, decided to do a Thanksgiving Food Drive (TFD) to benefit local need. The Youth Ministry hosted a game night that required the youth to find sponsors and donors. The result was enough to provide thirty-two families with full turkey dinners. This opened my eyes and made me realize that there hunger is a major problem in the United States and else where, and it is increasing. This is what gave birth to my inspiration, and made me determined to do more.            In 2004, we received a new Youth Ministry Leader, and that made me nervous as to whether or not the Thanksgiving Food Drive would be done that year. I talked with my dad about it many times and usually got the response ‘if you want it done then you got to do the work’. Accepting the fact that I would have to be the leader, I started working on a project plan for the TFD. It took me over a week to plan and consisted of me putting several hours of work into it each night, but in the end, I was satisfied with what I had designed. Next came the hard part, convincing the adults of the church. I had a meeting with the new Youth Minister and the Pastor of the church and explained to them what I had in mind. I received their ‘go ahead’ and proceeded to put the plan into action.             I kicked off the drive by speaking at three masses on the weekend of October 30th and 31st.  At those masses, and the masses at the next two weekends, I had youth stationed at the three entrances of the church at the end of mass with cans to collect monetary donations. I also gave parishioners a chance to sponsor a full thanksgiving basket for fifty dollars at the table located near the main entrance of the church. The table also included a display which showed pictures of the drive the year before, and also contained various facts about hunger, and the TFD. The third way people were able to donate was by taking one or more cards from any of the three TFD displays in the church which had specific food items for them to buy and then return. We also had the kids in the K-6 Faith Formation classes bring in specific items based on their grade. The results were amazing, there was an outpour of generosity which allowed us to provide sixty-six families with turkey dinners that including everything from pies and chocolates to gravy and dinner rolls. This drive provided me with the extra motivation I needed to obtain my goal, a Hunger Awareness Group.              My goal for creating the Hunger Awareness Group was so that there could be a group that provided families and shelters with food and items all year round, not just in November. I wanted the group to be able to join the war against hunger and I knew I needed a group to do this.