Swipe out Hunger Event Swipe Event

The Swipe out Event was different this year from years past as Braving Discipleship, a high school worship retreat, was also going on the same weekend as the Swipe Event; so president of Hungry for Change, junior, Janelle Bailey used that as an opportunity to get more volunteers for the event as well as teaching material for the students.

Along with Ottawa students and faculty, the high school students from Braving Discipleship were able to help package food.

Junior Amy Hastings, secretary of HFC said that this year’s packaging event was different with the Braving Discipleship helpers, as well as HFC usually has the swipe event during homecoming weekend where both students and alumni help package.

Faculty advisor, Sandra Marlatte saw many differences in this years packaging event from the last two year. “This year we are set up a little different from how we have done it in the past, so it will be interesting to see how that goes,” she said.

The goal this year for the Swipe event was 30,000 meals. Although HFC did not reach their goal, they will either save the money they didn’t use to package the meals for next year’s packaging event or donate it to Stop Hunger Now, the organization that helped put on the event, so they can use it on a different packaging event.

“I believe we packaged less than we were expecting because the registration for Braving Discipleship was lower than we anticipated,” Bailey said. “With that, we ended up not having the number of volunteers that we needed to get the full amount done.”

Marlatte explained how the numbers of college and high schools students were lower than expected, which corresponded to the lower number of meals that could be packaged.

Because OU is a smaller school, their packaged meals get mixed in with other smaller schools swipe events, and get sent together to a location, which is told to the schools after Stop Hunger Now gets a full load of meals. The last load from Kansas City was sent to the Philippines.

Although HFC didn’t reach their food-packaging goal, Bailey said the event was still very successful. “I really appreciated all of the volunteers who helped, especially those who ended up staying the whole morning,” she said. “We have some students on campus with big hearts of service, and it made my day to see that.”

Bailey also said it was a blessing to hear from some of the high school students about what it meant to take part in that event. Her favorite part of the event is how it gets so many people involved in a hand-on project that is not too complicated and is also very fun.

Hastings favorite part of the event is seeing people from around the community come and help package food. “They are just able to have fun while helping other people,” she said.

Marlatte’s appreciates people working together and packaging meals that are going to go somewhere to help other people. She finds that to be the most rewarding part of the swipe event.

There are many more activities coming up in HFC before Christmas break. They will be putting together some Thanksgiving meals for 30-35 targeted families in Ottawa. They will also be helping the Empty Bowls project in the beginning of December. Lastly, they will be doing their annual “Caroling for Cans” food drive and are going to continue with their “in-the-works” projects of Food Recovery, Emergency Food Pantry, and collaboration with Communities in School.

Everyone is welcome to learn more about the upcoming events by joining Hungry for Change on Tuesdays at 8:00p.m. in the Adawe Center.