Community Corner
St. Joseph HS Students to Fast, Increase Awareness
The event is called "Fasting in Action Together" (FIAT).
St. Joseph High School students will pull an all-nighter for awareness.
Called "Fasting in Action Together," FIAT is a 12-hour overnight fast and awareness program that gives students the opportunity to confront the stereotypes of poverty and experience some of the problems of people in our world who go to sleep hungry every night. Proceeds will be donated to the Sean Forest Foundation and Habitat for Humanity. Service hours will be given.
Students will partake in various activities in the gym from 8 p.m. Nov. 30 to 9 a.m. Dec. 1.
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All St. Joseph High School Students are welcome. Each class will be required to bring at least a $20 pledge for the 12 hours of fasting, as well as a class-specified material donation to be made to Operation Hope and various local charities.
The schedule will be as follows:
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8:00-8:45pm Registration & Poverty Stereotype Questionnaires
- 200 Printed Stereotype Questionnaires
- Nametags
Registration will take place at front tables manned by both servant leaders and chaperones. Arriving students will be breathalyzed. There, each participant will turn in their cash and itemized donations and receive a nametag. On that nametag will be a colored circle denoting their small group (to consist of roughly ten students and led by servant leaders). Each participant will also receive a poverty stereotype questionnaire on which the participant will write common stereotypes about poverty and agree or disagree with some provided stereotypes. These questionnaires will be used again later in the program. Each group will have a box for their group’s donations. Chiefs will come by and get the number of items in each group.
8:15-9:00pm High School Dropout Activity
- 20 sections of the classifieds from newspapers
- Markers or pens/pencils
Group members will go through the Classifieds section of local newspapers and attempt to locate jobs that would allow them to support themselves without a high school level education. After this, Group Leaders should facilitate discussion about the importance of education, and identify some of the problems that a person who dropped out of high school would face in supporting their family.
9:00-9:30pm Orientation/Opening Speeches
Opening Prayer: Fr. Mike
Rundown of Rules: St. Stunkel
Introduction: Molly and Tyler
Orientation will consist of the aforementioned speakers, as well as an introduction to the group leaders.
9:30-10:00pm DIGDEEP Talk
A speaker from the DIGDEEP foundation, which provides safe water to those who otherwise would not have access to it, will speak. Participants will be allowed to sit with whoever they want until the end of this talk, where they will be sorted into their small groups by the colored dot on their tag.
10:00 -10:45pm Information and Icebreaker Games***
The following games will be introduced as icebreakers and team building exercises for the servant leaders’ groups.
Sean Forest and Habitat for Humanity Information Videos
I’M GOING ON A PICNIC: Led by student leaders. A well known game in which the small group sits in a circle. The person next to the servant leader will say “I’m going on a picnic and I am bringing…” and will continue with an item to bring. From there on, the next person in the circle will say “I’m going on a picnic and I’m bringing…” and will repeat what everyone in the group has said previously and then add on an item of their own. The servant leader should be the last to repeat everything, and then add something along the lines of “But some have nothing to bring.”
THE HUMAN KNOT: This will be led individually by student leaders. In the human knot, a small group stands in a circle. Each participant will lock right hands with the person across from him, and left hands with the person directly to the right of the person holding he is holding right hands with. From there, the group must race against the clock to disentangle themselves without letting go. This is also a competition in which the first small group to finish wins a point toward the end prize.
10:45 pm-11:00pm Water/ Discussion break
11:00pm-11:30 Rosary
Since we do not have the resources to provide upwards of 200 rosaries to the participants, a PowerPoint will show a virtual rosary with the current bead highlighted and the current prayer listed. One person will lead the first part of each prayer, and the entire group will say the rest of the prayer.
11:00-12:00am Marble Activity
- Beans
Each member of the small group will act as a “councilperson” representing their town. Each member will be given a bean, symbolizing his or her vote in the town council. Every “councilperson” will place his or her bean in a cup where he or she believes resources are most needed. Then, every councilperson must advocate why s/he chose those specific resources. Finally, the group must reach a consensus on how the budget should be allocated, just as a real town council would! If there is any remaining time, group leaders should facilitate discussion on how this activity brought into perspective the budget problems both local and Federal governments face.
12:00-1:00am Midnight Mass
- Floor or Bleachers
Father Mike will lead a Midnight Mass of remembrance with a special focus on poverty prevention as Christians.
1:00-1:45am “Cross the Line” Poverty Awareness
Servant leaders will help to usher all participants to one side of the gym. Questions will be asked of the participants, and if they comply “yes”, they will ‘cross the line’ across to the other side of the gym (e.g, “If you own a cell phone, cross the line”). After this, participants will hear facts and statistics about poverty in Haiti and in the United States that show just how lucky we are to live the comfortable lives we do.
1:45-3:00am Box Homes Challenge***
- Boxes of varying sizes
- Tape
- Scissors
- Paper
- Markers
The small groups will create ‘box houses’ meant to shelter their entire group, as a sobering reminder of how many people in the United States and around the world survive. In order to distribute the materials for the houses, a pile of boxes, tape, and other tools will be placed in the center of the room (for the safety of everyone, each group will be provided a pair of scissors). Each group will elect a representative to run to the center of the room and grab as many materials as possible. The group will work together to design and decorate a house. Judges will then decide on the best house and that group will be awarded points toward a final prize.
3:00-3:15am Water Break and Judging
3:15-3:45am Persons Seeking Shelter Role Play
Group leader and two members of each group play shelter staff; others play persons seeking shelter. Each person seeking shelter must have reason/story and advocate for themselves. Shelter staff interviews those seeking shelter (Questions to ask: How did you end up in this situation/How long do you need shelter, why?/How many children do you have? etc). At the end, group is told there are only a certain number of beds (4 beds). Each person votes on who should get beds. Discuss why choices were made. Discuss number of turnaways at shelters in the area.
3:45-4:15am Sorting Donations
- Boxes for Donations
- Tables to put final sorted donations on
Servant Leaders’ groups will be assigned a box of donated supplies to sort and prepare for donation to one of the determined charities. Hopefully we will have an overwhelming amount of supplies, and so there will be plenty of work to do!
4:15- 5:15am Game of Life Activity***
- ~$20,000 in Monopoly money
- “Life” Cards
Participants will be given a card that specifies their job and their salary. Each card will be numbered 1-250 (or so). Every few moments, the announcers will provide roadblocks such as “everyone whose card ends in a 0- you’ve been in a car accident and need to pay to repair your car, deliver $150 to the bank”. The servant leaders will be set up at stations around the room titled “bank” or “food bank” or “hospital”, and will collect or give the money to the entitled participants. The point of the game is to see how difficult it can sometimes be to live off of a meager salary, or how easy it is to lose even a higher salary. When a participant becomes in debt, they will be stay at the homeless shelter until either their next paycheck or until their luck changes. The small group with the most money left at the end of the game will receive points towards the end prize.
5:15-7:15am Movie
- The Pursuit of Happyness
A movie that centers around the issues of poverty will be played, and participants will be allowed to relax (and maybe nap a little?) during this movie. The movie we have decided on is The Pursuit of Happyness. Although we don’t mind if some people take this as a chance to snooze, there may be some advantages- other than the lessons learned, to watching the movie.
7:15-7:45am Jeopardy Game
In this game, the teams currently leading in the race to win the grand prize will take turns answering questions in a fairly traditional game of jeopardy! The questions will center around issues that have been discussed over the course of the night, so encourage everyone to pay attention!
7:45-8:00am Water/Discussion break
7:50-8:00am Faces of Homelessness Film
This is a ten-minute film that highlights the lives of some homeless and formerly homeless people. It is a truly enlightening documentary.
8:00-8:30am Hunger Banquet
- Breakfast Items
- Cereal
- Bread
- Butter
- Jam
- Fruit (Bananas, Grapes, Oranges)
- Doughnuts
- Orange Juice
- Milk
- Tables
- Chairs
- Napkins
- Plates
- Bowls
- Plastic Silverware
- Cups
To mimic the real adjustment of the class system seen around the world, 10% of participants will randomly be given a red circle placing them in the “upper” class, 30% of participants will be given a yellow circle placing them in the “middle” class, and 60% of participants will be given a green circle placing them in the “lower” class. The upper class will be served a full breakfast to break their fast, the middle class a modest breakfast, and the lower class will be served nearly nothing at all. The upper and middle classes will have the choice to share their breakfast items with the lower class, at a cost to them. The whole point of this activity is to show the unfairness of the class system in our world, so if anyone is complaining- TOO BAD!
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