Alicia Edwards, Executive Director of TVC, addresses Attendees (More photos on Photo Essay page)

Article and photos by Charlie McKee

In recognition of Hunger Awareness Month in Grant County, members of the community lined up to receive their dinners “soup-kitchen style” at Wednesday's “Hunger for Knowledge” fundraiser for The Volunteer Center of Grant County. Dr. Emma Bailey's sociology classes at WNMU hosted the dinner; all food was donated; volunteers cooked and served the dinner; and all proceeds for the dinner went to The Volunteer Center to alleviate hunger in Grant County.

Prior to dining on the typically Food Pantry fare of beans and rice, white bread, and applesauce, the students of Dr. Bailey's Social Inequality and the Sociology of Food classes presented the results of team research projects regarding food, nutrition, and poverty in New Mexico. While attendees were given a little taste of hunger by a staged “delay” of the food delivery truck for the dinner, they traveled in groups from presentation to presentation by each team of students to learn about the realities of real hunger and poverty in our own community, county, and state.

Joseph Shepard, President of WNMU, attended the event, as did state Representative Rudy Martinez and Grant County Commissioner Cindy Miller.