Newspaper Page Text
November 30, 1984/The Maroon Tiger/Page 5B
Kappas Find Hunger
Task Force Report
Appalling
The President’s Task Force on
I Food Assistance is “a national
> disgrace and a tremendous dis-
: service to the hungry of
t America,” said Robert L. Gor-
i don, Grand Polemarch of Kappa
Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
The Task Force, headed by
UCLA Graduate School of
Management Dean J. Clayburn
LaForce, ]r. spent $350,000 prob
ing the extent of hunger in
America and concluded: “We
have not been able to substan
tiate allegations of rampart
hunger.”
However, a study by The
Center for Disease Control in
Atlanta has suggested that as
many as 500,000 poor children
under the age of six aresuffering
from malnutrition.
“The findings of President
Reagan’s Task Force were
overwhelmingly conservative.
Several commission members
were architects of his cuts in food
programs,” said Gordon.
“For example, Kenneth
Clarkston helped devise the
budget that made one million
people ineligible for food stamps
and lowered food stamp benefits
for an additional 20 million
people. Moreover,” said Gor
don, “he took 2.6 million
children out of school lunch
programs.”
“With these types of insen
sitive cuts to vital human services
for the poor, it is not at all
surprising that for fiscal year
1985, Reagan is calling for $636
million more to be trimmed from
food assistance programs,” said
Grand Polemarch Gordon.
Kappa believes this Task Force
is an insult to the many hungry
people in America who are so
primarily because of the
President’s “inhumane’’
policies.
This grand fraternity, which
has long struggled for the rights
of the poor of this nation calls
upon all it's chapter and
members to register their protest
of this deplorable report and to
encourage the Administration to
feed the poor rather than cover
up the existence of hunger in
America,” said Grand Polemarch
Gordon.
Thanksgiving ^Hunger Fast’
Campuses Nationwide
BOSTON, MA (CPS) —
Students on over 100 campuses
fasted on the Thursday before
Thanksgiving “to call attention
to world hunger and to find out
what it’s like to do without
food."
At the University of lllinois-
Urbana, for instance, greeks and
dormies fasted and used the
proceeds from their unused
meal tickets to feed famine
victims in Ethiopia.
And Morehouse College
students, who last year ranked in
the largest per student con
tributions of any campus in the
country, tried to set a new
record, says campus fast coor
dinator Freddie Asinor.
The one day, national event is
being coordinated by Oxfam
America, a U.S. branch of the
Oxford Committee on Famine
Relief based in Oxford, England.
“Many of our most active
chapters are on college cam
puses and are run by students
and faculty members,” says
Oxfam America spokeswoman
Sara Newstadel, adding her
organization’s membership has
jumped in recent years.
Although this November 15th
will be the group’s 11th annual
day of fasting, she says media
coverage of the current famine
in Africa, along with an im
proved American economy,
have made many people more
aware and more concerned
about the world hunger
problem.
More than 100 college cam
puses will participate in this
year’s fast, Newstadel says.
“Last year over a half million
people participated in the fast,”
she says, “and raised over $500,-
000 for the Oxfam America
hunger drive.”
Much of the support for this
year’s drive, as with previous
years, she says, “is due to help
from colleges and campus-
affiliated religious
organizations.”
Despite all the talk of student
apathy and lack of concern with
social issues among today’s
college students, “I think we’ve
got a very active and concerned
group of students on today’s
campuses,” says Father David
Turner, of the University of
Illinois' Newman House.
Most of the campus’ frats and
dorm residents will forgo their
meals on Nov. 15th and give their
money to Oxfam instead, he
says.
Morehouse College hopes to
break last year’s $1 per student
contribution record by bringing
in over $2000 for the hunger
strike, says coordinator Asinor.
Many campuses also will end
their fasts with a "hunger ban
quet," adds Oxfam’s Newstadel.
“At the end of the day people
who participated in the fast will
meet for a banquet and
everyone will be given a slip of
paper telling them what country
they represent,” she explains.
"Then, people from western
Hunger is killing millions of people around the world. Help. Contribute, and save life.
Photo by Donald McCullin
Photo taken by an Oxfam field worker in Phnom Penh last week shows the extent of malnutritution
evident among children in the
taken.
Europe and America will get a
whole plate full of hot food,
while people from Third World
nations will get a glass of water
>untry. The child lying on the mat
and some rice,” Newstadel con
tinues.
"It makes for a very interesting
died soon after this photo was
experience to sit next to
someone who is hungry while
you have a full plate of hot food,
or vice versa," she says.