Michelle Limbaugh’s Monday night dinner at the Student Union was different from the meals most University students are accustomed to.
The biology and French senior sat on pieces of cardboard while she ate a measly bowl of rice with her hands at the second annual Oxfam Hunger Banquet, a dinner held to raise awareness about poverty and hunger around the world.
Upon arrival, participants chose tickets to determine whether they dined as a low-class, middle-class or high-class members of society.
The crowd of more than 65 consisted of 15 percent high class, 35 percent middle class and 50 percent low class, proportional to the world’s actual population.
According to Meredith Keating, CANapalooza chairperson and communication disorders sophomore, the high class makes $12,000 or more each year, living comfortably with one car and two televisions. Their children will have at least a high school education, she said.
The middle class makes less than $12,000 but no less than $987 a year, granting some electricity and a few years of schooling for their children, but taking the chance of falling into poverty at any time.
The world’s lower class makes less than $986 a year, struggling as land laborers who walk many miles to get water each day and risk the loss of their houses, which are made of flimsy material.
White tablecloths draped over round tables welcomed a spot for the higher class, and plain tables and chairs were reserved for middle-class members. Low-class participants were forced to sit on the floor, periodically adjusting themselves from one uncomfortable position to the next.
As waiters brought out luxurious pasta meals and chocolate cake desserts served on silver platters to the upper-class, those seated on the floor looked on as they were the last to be served, receiving only a small bowl of rice.
“I know I felt a little jealous looking around at the chocolate cake,” Limbaugh said.
The middle class helped themselves to beans, rice and a roll at a buffet before settling down to eat.
Middle-class member Alex Reynolds, biology sophomore, was disappointed with the “very skimpy portions,” causing him to sneak back to the buffet table to grab more rolls in order to get full.
After the meal, Annrose Guarino, associate professor of human ecology, revealed shocking statistics about hunger in the U.S. and around the world.
“Compared to the rest of the world, [Louisiana] is well off,” she said.
But the southern region of the U.S. is the most impoverished in the country, and the number of people receiving food stamps in the U.S. has doubled since 2002, she said.
More than 80 percent of schoolchildren in East Baton Rouge Parish Schools receive free or reduced lunch.
“We’re the highest state for child poverty for children under the age of five,” Guarino said.
There are 22,000 children around the world who die everyday from hunger. Keating reminded the audience that it is not always someone’s fault if he or she suffers from hunger.
“No one can choose the circumstances under which they were born,” she said.
Several participants were moved from the lower class to the middle class and vice versa because of certain situations in order to stress this concept.
The banquet was hosted by Campus Life’s Homecoming committee.
 
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Contact Juliann Allen at [email protected]