Lower Class Seating
The flyer said “Come prepared for a non-traditional lunch experience”, and it was true to its word. As we filed in to the meeting room, we each got a ticket that read ‘Lower Class”, “Middle Class” and “Upper Class”. Those lucky enough to get the upper class tickets were led to tables with tablecloths, pitchers of ice water, and plates with salads, rolls, and chicken. The ‘Middle Class” sat in rows of chairs and were told to stand in the buffet line to grab rice, beans and water. At least these two groups had silverware. The hapless ‘Lower Classes” were forced to sit on a floor littered with garbage, drink dirty water and eat rice with their fingers.
The lunch was preceded by a presentation from Second Harvest Vice President of Development Gred Higgerson, who described the problems that our local community’s at-risk population are suffering and Second Harvest’s programs to alleviate hunger in Central Florida. Then, Julie Columbino and Joyce Piacine explained the unusual seating and eating arrangements for the luncheon with an eye-opening presentation about the true situation of hunger in the world today. A full transcript of this powerful presentation can be read here.
After lunch, there was a call to action from the Society of St. Andrews Volunteer representative who made us aware of the vast amounts of good food going to waste in the United States and her organization’s gleaning program that is recovering huge amounts of food that was literally rotting on the vine and on the ground. To learn more about their work and to volunteer, go to their website, endhunger.org. Rock from Hunger’s Chris Goyzueta also came out to tell us about their goal to end homelessness one person at a time, and talked about a new publication called Talk 4 Hunger which will create 50+ jobs for the Orlando homeless community and much more.
Be sure to catch our May luncheon, where the theme is ‘Give a Kid a Backpack’! It will be held at the Heart of Florida United Way, 1940 Traylor Boulevard in Orlando on May 16 @ noon.
