middletowneye

Benefit Dinner Raises Thousands for End Hunger Connecticut!

On the evening of Wednesday, December 1, nearly 300 people attended Food For All: A benefit dinner for End Hunger Connecticut! on the Wesleyan University Campus. For $6 a plate, participants tasted food cooked by over a dozen Middletown restaurants and Wesleyan student groups.

End Hunger Connecticut! is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to eliminate hunger in the state through legislative and administrative advocacy, outreach, and public education. Although End Hunger Connecticut! has worked with Wesleyan students on prior occasions, this event was the first large-scale fundraising effort for the organization on Wesleyan’s campus.

“Personally I think working with college students is great,” Lucy Nolan, Executive Director of End Hunger Connecticut!, said. “They have a lot of energy…they bring great ideas; different ideas than maybe I would have.”

Dawn Crayco, End Hunger Connecticut, organized the event! Child Nutrition Program and Policy Directory, along with members of Wesleyan’s Housing and Hunger Program, and WesFRESH, a student organization dedicated to raising food consciousness. The benefit was modeled after “Taste the Nation” programs, where chefs cook to raise money to end childhood hunger.

“We wanted the event to not only raise money, but also to raise awareness,” Haley Baron, the Coordinator of the Housing and Hunger program at Wesleyan, said. “We want to promote understanding about what the issues are [in order] to take effective action.”

Tickets were sold the week prior to the event, as well as at the door. After only 45 minutes, the banquet hall was full, and the majority of the food was eaten. Once the rush for food subsided, Nolan gave a talk on hunger and food issues in Connecticut, and the different ways in which End Hunger Connecticut! is trying to combat them.

“Connecticut has some of the wealthiest communities in the nation, but it also has some of the most impoverished areas,” Nolan said. “People don’t always realize how big the food issues are [here].”

In total, the event raised nearly $2000. End Hunger Connecticut! receives support from state and federal grants, as well as private foundations and organizations. The money from the event, however, provides much needed unrestricted money, which the organization may use for lobbying and advocacy work.

“It’s really great for us to receive money that is not restricted,” Nolan said. “It allows us to have an effect at the capital that we would not necessarily have otherwise.”

For more information about End Hunger Connecticut!, visit their website at www.endhungerct.org.