Hunger banquet aims to raise awareness

Joel Rekas wants to make people uncomfortable tonight.\nRekas, the executive director of Shalom Community Center, organized the center's third annual Hunger Banquet, which will be held today at 6:30 p.m. The night will include a performance of a play and a simulation of eating meals from different social classes. Rekas said the event sometimes makes people uncomfortable, but that's what makes it effective. \nMonroe County has one of the highest poverty rates in Indiana at 18.9 percent, according to a press release from the Shalom Community Center, a local outreach center for the impoverished. Rekas plans on changing that statistic through efforts such as tonight's, and community awareness plays a big role, he said.\n"There are two goals," Rekas said. "The first goal is to raise money, and the second goal is to raise public awareness."\nThe "hunger banquet model" was created by Oxfam International, an international organization that raises awareness of such issues as poverty.\n"Each person is assigned an economic status when they walk in," Rekas said. "They will eat food based on their class and then discuss afterwards. It's always interesting what they talk about. For example, one year folks in the higher income group felt discomfort over the great food they're eating compared to those in the lower income groups."\nThat discomfort is the target for participants, as Rekas wants people to get a glimpse of impoverished life and let these feelings wash over them, he said. These feelings will be accented by a play, written by Karen Kurfirst, about personal experiences with a homeless person in Bloomington. Bloomington Playwrights Project will perform the play.\nTickets are almost sold out and cost $20. They can be bought directly from Shalom Community Center, located on the first floor of First United Methodist Church at 219 E. Fourth St. \n"Bloomington looks nice, but poverty is always invisible," Rekas said. "This year looks to be the biggest and best yet and will hopefully change people's feelings"