50,000 Goldfish crackers sitting on a table in the hot sun; this is equivalent to about 48 bags of Goldfish. These fish were used to represent the number of people that die each day due to starvation around the world. World hunger is a prevalent issue that Athens Drive junior, Megan Carroll, is trying to draw attention to by making it the topic of her graduation project.

            “I think the reason so many problems exist in the world is because people don’t know about them, so the first step to solving these problems is awareness,” said Carroll.

            Carroll held a hunger awareness walk called Feeding Frenzy April 23 at the Koka Booth Amphitheatre. People walked around the lake at Regency and read different facts about world hunger.

            One of these facts read:

            “In the U.S. 157 million tons of food are fed to livestock annually to produce meat; which amounts to 130 million tons of lost food for humans.”

             Carroll had three different organizations at the even educating people about world hunger: Curamericas, The Society of St. Andrews and the NC Food Bank. The organization that Carroll worked with primarily was Curamericas. Stephanie McMillan is a representative of Curamericas and spent her afternoon educating people about what their organization is all about.

            “We partner with organizations in developing countries to reduce child and maternal mortality rates; we have worked in Bolivia, Guatemala and Liberia,” said McMillan.

            McMillan also said that it was hard to fathom, even in the U.S., how many people die from hunger on a daily basis. She thinks it is wonderful that Carroll is doing something more to inform people about the issue.

            “Curamericas thinks it is wonderful that Megan is doing this, to do something like this you have to have the heart for it,” said McMillan.

            Many Athens Drive students came out to support Carroll and her project. Junior Zahra Ginary was born in Africa and has witnessed the tremendous effect hunger has on people.

            “I think world hunger is an issue today, because I have seen it [hunger] first hand, and you don’t really realize how bad it is until you see it,” said Ginary.

            Meredith Hardy, junior, believes that Feeding Frenzy is a great start to addressing the severity of this problem.

            “This is a great beginning to the issue, but we should continue to do whatever we can to keep raising awareness,” said Hardy.

            Carroll first got interested in the issue of world hunger when her mother and she took a mission trip to Haiti in sixth grade. With the organization Friends of Ft. Liberty (FOFL).

            “My family and I had sponsored three kids through FOFL, and it was nice to be able to put a face with the names, but it was horrifying to see the conditions that they lived in, the huts with thatched roofs that leak when it rains. It made me realize how blessed I am to have what I have. It made me realize that something had to be done to address this problem,” said Carroll.

            Carroll was happy with how the event turned out and so were the organizations involved. About $1300 dollars were raised for her mission trip this summer to Bolivia and the canned foods donated provided about 70 meals. McMillan from Curamericas believed that it was also a very successful event but also believes that more still needs to be done.

            McMillan said, “It is not just having the knowledge of the hungry, it is acting on it.”