LEWISTON – Bates College students invite people from a local soup kitchen for a meal.

University of Maine at Farmington students lobby for the environment.

Southern Maine college volunteers draw attention to hunger by fasting.

All for the national Month of Action.

“Sometimes people really feel it’s somebody else’s problem or somebody else will deal with it,” said Rose Fitch, service learning coordinator for Lewiston-Auburn College in Lewiston. “We need to realize that ‘somebody’ is us.”

Started by the Campus Compact, a national coalition of colleges and universities, the National Month of Action spurs students to get involved in their communities. Across Maine, students from 11 colleges will spend the next four weeks immersed in projects.

Many will focus on the issue of hunger.

At Bates College, students and people from the Trinity Soup Kitchen in Lewiston shared dinner Wednesday. Sophomore Chelsea Tryder, who helped organize the event, said she hoped students could learn about the problem of hunger – and possible solutions – from the people who have to deal with it every day.

“It’s not a simple problem by any stretch, but you can start in your community,” she said.

At Southern Maine Community College in South Portland and the University of New England in Biddeford, students will get a firsthand look at hunger. Volunteers will fast for 24 to 30 hours to draw attention to hunger in Maine and to raise money for charity.

At other schools, students will focus on volunteerism in general.

Students at Lewiston-Auburn College will participate in a weekly discussion about service learning. The University of Maine at Farmington will hold its first awards ceremony to recognize students and faculty who volunteered during the year.

Students from several colleges, including UMF, the University of Maine at Augusta and York County Community College, will travel to Washington, D.C., next week to work on volunteer projects and to talk with Maine’s congressional delegates about environmental issues.

The Month of Action begins this week and ends March 20. More than 100,000 students are expected to take part nationwide.

ltice@sunjournal.com

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