My 30-Hour Famine

Going without, for a good cause

by Nadia Stadnycki

so hungry

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Friday, Feb. 22, 8:55 a.m. Scrounging around in my fridge for something breakfast-like, I realize it's been quite some time since I chose food with any kind of premeditated logic — I'm more of a "grab-and-go" kind of girl. But today, I need to find something nutritious. Starting at noon, I can't eat for 30 hours.

11 a.m. I have to work three shifts at a restaurant during my fast. Cruel and unusual? After we've gone over lunch specials, I explain to my co-workers that I'm participating in the World Vision 30-Hour Famine, an annual event in which thousands of teens fast to raise money for and awareness about world hunger. (World Vision is a Christian humanitarian nonprofit providing global poverty relief through community development programs. Last year, the project raised more than $11.7 million in one weekend.) Jaws drop. "Can you drink tea?" one horrified server asks.

11:37 a.m. Finishing a last bite of chicken and couscous. Our chef is observing me with maternal concern. "Man, I don't know if I could do it," she says. "I'm full," I tell her.

12:01 p.m. Pouring a hot tea.

4 p.m. Six hot teas later, I'm sitting through a fundraising meeting for my restaurant's nonprofit. Our secretary is eating chicken fingers, and I realize I can't pick at his fries. Does ketchup count if you drink it?

6:30 p.m. A list of things I've involuntarily grabbed at in the past two and a half hours: leftover conversation hearts, orange slices, penne noodles, celery stalks, fries, a Milky Way bar, soup and falafel.

8:45 p.m. A homeless man, dubbed "Philly Phil" by locals, talks me into giving him a ginger ale. He wraps slender fingers around the glass. "Thanks, Gorgeous." I find myself wondering when he ate last, and then realizing, with some shock, that on a global scale, he actually doesn't have it that bad — every day, 29,000 children die from diseases associated with malnutrition. That's one kid every six seconds. Phil sucks down the last of the ginger ale and heads back to the street.

9:05 p.m. After 10 teas and four glasses of water, my stomach growls for the first time.

9:10 p.m. A regular customer apologetically asks for the dessert menu.

Saturday, 10 a.m. The 30-Hour Famine encourages participants to do service projects during their fast. Today, 97 hungry teens from the Philly suburbs will be serving meals at 13th and Pine, handing out bag lunches near the Art Museum and working a thrift store on Frankford Avenue. I'm on my way to Kensington's St. Francis Soup Kitchen.

Noon Pam Longstreet, a volunteer director from Langhorne Presbyterian Church, directs me to the apron bin. I strap on an orange one and load a tray with napkins and spoons (I'm starting to think I was brought to this planet to bus tables). The people who come in for a plate of pasta with meat sauce are folks I pass on the street every day — men with somber faces, women with bruises, children excited about cupcakes. The interaction between them and the volunteers is gentle, for Kensington. "Thank you, sir," says a whiskered man in a faded red cap. "You're welcome, my friend," replies his server. Still, talk around the table is of drugs, problems on the block, disobedient relatives.

1:57 p.m. After cleaning up, I chat with my fellow volunteers about our project. "It gives you an idea of what so many people go through," says Ethan Chase, 17. "Just not eating can help so many people by raising awareness."

Awareness is a key word here, I've decided. After all, the food I didn't eat doesn't wind up on anyone's table, and a one-day glut of volunteers doesn't keep soup kitchens open. A fast like this works only if it inspires long-term changes in behavior.

4 p.m. At work again. I'm wondering what it says about me that none of the staff thought I'd make it the full 30 hours.

6 p.m. I can eat, but I could probably put it off a bit longer. As of this writing, the 97 local youths have raised $7,800 for World Vision projects in North Korea, Malawi and Haiti.

6:04 p.m. Finishing yesterday's couscous instead of ordering a new meal. I know it's just a gesture, but hopefully, it will lead to bigger things.

(nadia.stadnycki@citypaper.net)