c. 1999 Religion News Service

FAIRHOPE, Ala. _ Two years ago, Erin Brady didn’t eat for 30 hours.

No Oreos. No handfuls of trail mix. No French Fries. No nothing.

She did it by choice.

Before she started, she even thought it would be fun. That was before she woke up on a Saturday morning and couldn’t eat any breakfast.

“That’s when it really hit,” she says.

And that’s when she got a shred of an idea of what life is like for the 800 million people around the world who are chronically undernourished.

She wasn’t the only one experiencing such pangs. Brady was spending the weekend fasting with fellow teen-agers at St. Lawrence Catholic Church here.

They, along with hundreds of thousands of other teens around the country, spent 30 hours not just giving up food, but learning about the causes and solutions to hunger and poverty.

This weekend, she and others will do it all over again.

It’s all part of the 30 Hour Famine, an annual project of World Vision, the evangelical Christian relief and development agency. Each year, participants seek pledges for each hour they fast; during that time, many also work in area soup kitchens or raise funds for the agency.

In addition to the events in Alabama, teen fasters from San Diego will volunteer in an orphanage in Tijuana, Mexico while students from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio will refurbish houses and volunteer in a soup kitchen in Cincinnati. In Suffolk County, N.Y., teens will conduct a hunger awareness through their neighborhoods.

Every little bit helps. Indeed, the organization says that for each participant in the 1998 effort _ an estimated 500,000 teenagers _ the lives of 88 children and families were changed.

Funds raised this year will be used in Sudan, North Korea, Romania, Kenya, Mexico and the United States.

The statistic isn’t lost on the 18-year-old Brady.

And now, after two years of participating in the famine as a student, she’s helping lead the effort here.

“It’s important to me that we understand that there’s so much of the world that’s impoverished,” she said. “They’re having these famines all over. We just need to do something about it.”

It’s the sense of possibility that makes the 30 Hour Famine so popular and successful, according to World Vision officials and supporters.

Knowing that what each participant does might makes a difference in the lives of hungry children and families around the globe makes a difference to the more privileged youth who choose to fast for 30 hours, said Milan Sherman, St. Lawrence’s youth minister.

Oftentimes, Sherman said, people avert their gazes from the images of starving children not because such pictures make them sad, but because they feel as if there’s nothing they can do to help.

But by participating in the World Vision event, Sherman said kids “don’t feel like they have to ignore the problem because there’s nothing they can do about it.”

Instead, they learn that they can do something to change the fact that in 1999, 33,000 children will die each day from hunger, malnutrition and disease.

Furthermore, Brady said, they can do something about the spiritual hunger that some of the teen volunteers may suffer. As she spends time with students this weekend, Brady said she hopes to help them think about physical and spiritual food.

“We want them to get a better understanding of what’s going on, and to better their own relationship with God,” she said. “When you can’t have human nourishment, it makes you rely on spiritual nourishment.”

DEA END CAMPBELL