At Schools, Lessons About Hunger

By Daniel P. Bader
POSTED MAY 2, 2008

The Taste of Tribeca showcases the best of area restaurants, but students from P.S. 150 and 234, armed with a fresh perspective, will be out in force talking about something very different: The world’s hungry children.

The 4th and 5th graders interest was piqued by “Give Back” assemblies held at the two schools on April 29. Speakers for the United Nations World Food Programme and UNICEF hoped to find volunteers for their booths at the Tribeca Film Festival street fair May 3 and for the Taste event May 17.

“How much do you think it costs to feed a kid for a day?” asked World Food Programme spokeswoman Bettina Luescher.

Kids’ hands popped up all around the P.S. 234 auditorium.

“Fifteen cents!” answered one student.

“Five bucks!” said another.

“Twenty dollars!” called yet another.

The answer is 25 cents.

Luescher’s organization buys and distributes food around the world—to places like Sudan’s Darfur region and in Uganda and Afghanistan.

Last year volunteers from the schools (about 40 in total) raised $2,300 for the World Food Programme—the group’s third year at the Taste of Tribeca. It’s the first year that UNICEF, a group that provides necessities like protection, food, water and education to the world’s poorest children, will participate. At the assemblies, she stressed the importance of bringing clean water to impoverished children.

“There are kids the same age as you who can’t eat ice cream or play or go to school,” said Kristen Sheldon, UNICEF coordinator for volunteers. “They don’t even have water fountains.” She added that children have to pull water from holes in the ground, often far from their homes.

“Do you think the water in the ground is clean?” she asked.

Shouts of “No!” filled the room.

Afterwards, it was clear the message had sunk in. Seated in a circle in their P.S. 234 classroom, Pat Carney’s 4th graders reflected on what they’d learned.

“I knew that kids were hungry in places, but I didn’t know they would die every six seconds,” one student said.

Carney asked her kids what they thought they could do to help.

Donated money from chores was one suggestion. A lemonade stand another.

“Plant a garden and sell food,” said one student.

At P.S. 150, Michaela Bootz, 11, was shocked by the number of children who die every day from starvation.

“A lot more kids need help than I thought,” she said.

Enlisting the help of the children, Luescher explained, “is a fundraising tool, but also an education tool.” She said she usually speaks to the media, not kids, but makes a point of visiting the two Tribeca schools every year.

“Taste of Tribeca is a wonderful event,” she said. “I think [kids] are the most generous. They’d give their last dime.”

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