Maine Hunger Dialogue
Maine Hunger Dialogue
Maine Hunger Dialogue
Maine Hunger Dialogue
Maine Hunger Dialogue
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Maine Hunger Dialogue
One in four children in Maine go to school or preschool hungry. In 2015, the University of Maine Cooperative Extension and Maine Campus Compact held the second annual Maine Hunger Dialogue, a statewide initiative to actively engage college and university students to end hunger. One hundred and fifty faculty and students from 20 Maine campuses and high schools came to the Dialogue and left with commitments and action plans to address hunger in their communities. In addition, fourteen campus teams were awarded $500 to augment their efforts on projects such as: establishing or maintaining campus food pantries, re-invigorating campus-based community gardens cultivated for local food pantries, establishing a food recovery network to redirect cafeteria surplus to local food security organizations, and implementing two fundraisers that resulted in $2500 raised for the Mid-Coast Hunger Prevention Program. As a condition of receiving the grant, the teams will report back about their projects at the 2016 Maine Hunger Dialogue this November to inspire and inform their fellow participants. In addition, three summer interns were funded by the 2015 Hunger Dialogue working with hunger alleviation organizations.
The Maine Hunger Dialogue planning team includes the Maine Campus Compact, UMaine Cooperative Extension, Maine businesses and community volunteers. The goal is to end hunger in Maine through active community youth and adult engagement. Senator Justin Alfond, from Maine spoke at the 2015 Hunger Dialogue: "Students are leaders in our community, they are the catalyst that creates the ripple effect to end student hunger in communities across Maine."