Box City 4Finding a school with solid roots in social justice and activism will provide you with many life skills and opportunities to make a difference. Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, a national event sponsored at Gannon by the Center for Social Concerns and the Social Concerns Club, is one of many social justice projects students can take part in. Other service outlets from the CSC include GIVE Day and Alternative Break Service Trips.

During Gannon’s Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, students, faculty and staff can:

  • Pledge to skip a meal at the cafeteria and donate the cost of that meal to Oxfam America
  • Collect nonperishable food donations in front of local grocery stores
  • Attend the fair trade coffee social
  • Dine at the “Global Banquet,” which simulates inequality and world hunger issues (The Banquet included guest speaker George Watson, a formerly homeless man)
  • Take up residence in Gannon’s “Box City” and collect change for local charities and agencies

Tammy Fritz, program coordinator for the Center of Social Concerns, said Box City is a particularly important event during Hunger and Homelessness Week.

“It gives students a sense of what people who live on the streets go through,” she said.

Hunger and Homelessness Week isn’t just about helping the less fortunate. It’s also about understanding the suffering of poverty, raising awareness about hunger and homelessness and learning how to help in as many ways as possible.

Check out these photos from Hunger and Homelessness Week 2009’s “Box City,” taken by Edge staffers Courtney Herzing and Nicole Dohoda.

Want to know more about service projects and volunteering at Gannon? Read more about the annual GIVE Day project – and check out our photo spread, too.