PERU – Unlike most youths their age, 14-year-old Therese Cihak and 16-year-olds Ray Hutchinson and Chelsie Gunther won’t be eating food next weekend.

Instead, the trio will join six other area youths in a 30-hour fast on Saturday and Sunday, Feb. 27 and 28, to raise money to feed starving children across the world.

For Hutchinson of Jay, the two-day fast will be his fifth such abstention from food for World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine, an effort passionately believes in.

“We have a good time, we raise money and we save lives. Saving lives, that’s a good enough reason to keep doing it,” Hutchinson said Friday night.

Hutchinson, Cihak of Rumford, and Gunther of Peru, are members of Friends on a Mission Youth Group, which is based out of the United Baptist Church in Peru.

Other members are Brian Hunt, Hannah Mikkonen, and Jessica and Alyson Gill, all of Peru, James Mello of Farmington, and Chris Mejias of Rumford.

Last year, the youth group raised $1,400 of the total $22 million.

This is the sixth year local teens have chosen to participate in World Vision’s 30 Hour Famine, an international program that includes more than one million participants in 21 countries, said youth group co-leader Cathy Hazelton.

“I think it’s phenomenal that every year these youths ask to participate in this world fasting effort,” Hazelton said Friday, while watching the youth group serve cake and pies to about 50 people during their fund-raising, first ever Decadent Dessert Night at the church.

“Because of efforts like the 30 Hour Famine, which was begun in 1992, the number of children who die each day from hunger and hunger-related diseases has fallen from 35,000 to 29,000,” she added.

To Cihak, that’s one of the reasons why she looks forward to not eating anything but juice and water with her friends from noon on Saturday to 6 p.m. Sunday.

“Think about it – 29,000 children die every day. That’s like every breath you take, a child dies, and to me, that’s very scary,” she said.

Hazelton said that while the youths fast, they raise money through pledges, empathizing, as they learn more about the factors involved in poverty, and what it’s like to go hungry.

“In the U.S. alone, one out of every eight children under the age of 12 goes to bed hungry every night. Worldwide, one in 12 people is malnourished, including 160 million children under the age of 5,” she said.

But not only are the youths helping poverty-stricken, hungry children around the world. They’ll also be doing community service projects while they fast.

On Saturday, they’ll work at the Free Store in Mexico from 8 to 10 a.m., then participate in a bottle drive from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

Funds collected from the drive are to be matched by a challenge grant from the Sandy River Charitable Foundation and allow the purchase of food from the Good Shepherd Food-Bank for the Families in Crisis Task Force food pantry.

To make a donation or to learn more about the project, phone Hazelton at 562-8278 or Liz Cihak at 369-0222, or visit www.30hourfamine.org.

tkarkos@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link