Adrian Kimmok’s campaign at West High School had 4 parts: a canned food drive, petition drive, downtown Los Angeles trip, and speaker event.
Adrian’s reflections on the campaign:
Going into this World Hunger MDG campaign, I felt slightly concerned about how everything will turn out. I found myself constantly questioning whether the series of events I had organized would be a big hit or a mere failure. To make things worse, I was directing my campaign towards high school students—who are seemingly apathetic about such issues (at least where I live).
To my surprise, many students showed up and actively participated in the events.
The Canned Food Drive was launched firstly in my campaign. It was a week-long event, and with a little help from the school’s service clubs (California Scholarship Federation and Interact), my friends and I managed to get every class to participate. By the end of the week, the cans were weighed; generating a collective weight of nearly 700 pounds! In a large university campus, this number may seem insignificant; however, in my high school, this achievement was a huge stepping stone in the campaign. The canned foods were distributed to various soup kitchens and the Salvation Army.
Afterwards, I got the chance to work with the school’s Amnesty International. With their help, I organized a school-wide petition drive. Throughout the week, petition booths were set up in every quad—getting signatures and spreading the word about world hunger. It truly was a memorable experience to see hundreds of students’ facial expressions turn from apathetic ones to those of shock and distress after they heard the statistics. Many were left in disbelief and asked me, “Are all these numbers real? Do that many people really die per year just because they don’t have a sufficient amount of food?” Some would comment, “Wow. Now I feel bad for eating an excessive amount of food.”
As the third week of the month rolled by, my campaign appeared to have grown significantly. Over 50 students signed up for the downtown trip to Los Angeles to help feed the homeless (and it was a Saturday morning)! Unfortunately, we were only able to take 20 students. Pacific American Volunteering Association provided meals and the students distributed them. We served approximately 140 people!
I felt that after several successful events directed towards world hunger, it would only be appropriate to close the series with an inspirational speech. Once again, I worked with Amnesty International—bringing in a Chinese speaker, Kai Chen. Kai Chen is a former Chinese basketball player who travels around the world, speaking about various topics. He spoke in regards to how prevalent world hunger is in every part of the world—including Africa, North Korea, China, and etc. To add a little fun-factor to the event, students were given the opportunity to play the former athlete in a game of basketball.
Generally, the World Hunger MDG campaign was a success. I believe students are now more aware of global poverty and world hunger and more willing to take action. I have no doubts that this campaign is only the beginning of a very good year.
THE FOLLOWING ARE PICTURES FROM THE KAI CHEN SPEAKING DAY:
About Adrian Kimmok
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