March Madness and the fight against hunger

While watching the NCAA division 3 basketball championships this past weekend, I was also following another match between Sinclair Community College and the University of Illinois. The Sinclair-illinois match was a Freerice trivia contest. The Illini Fighting Hunger club won against the defending Freerice champion Sinclair.

Freerice is an online trivia game where every correct answer generates a donation to the UN World Food Program via sponsors. The game offers a great opportunity for anyone to have contests to see who can answer the most questions right.

Freerice is an exciting part of the March Madness season of tournaments that got started back in 2019. A student from Mount St. Joseph University, Grace Bright (Hauserman), heard me talk about Freerice and decided to start a school team.

This led to other schools starting teams and the March Madness Freerice contest to benefit the WFP. Other Freerice contests are held during the year too. Any support you can give to fight world hunger can make a big difference because the impact of wars and climate change has really escalated hunger. People are starving to death on a daily basis overseas and there is not enough funding to help them. But everyone can do something to save lives.

March Madness brings people together through basketball and can also unite us in great causes like stopping hunger. During the famine in Ethiopia back in 1985 the City Championships of the Chicago Boys Club basketball league decided to help out during their March tournament. The Chicago Defender reported that fans who brought a donation for the Ethiopian Famine Relief Fund would get free admission to the games.

There are all kinds of way people can help prevent starvation around the globe during March Madness. There are many different types of event ideas you can come up with.

I remember one year back in Massachusetts we held a free throw contest with sponsors providing the donation per shot made. Something like that could make for a good event today to raise donations for charities fighting hunger like WFP, Save the Children, CARE, Mary’s Meals, Catholic Relief Services, Mercy Corps, Edesia, UNICEF and others.

While the donations are important, it’s also vital to get people thinking about hunger and finding ways to stop it. With wars in the Middle East, Africa and Europe taking place right now it’s especially important to understand what’s at stake.

War often creates the conditions for famine leaving children vulnerable to deadly malnutrition. Relief agencies can save lives, if they have enough funding.

We need citizens against hunger to remind Congress to fund humanitarian aid at the levels needed. After World War I Congress passed appropriations that funded child feeding programs in the devastated countries.

Likewise after World War II Congress funded aid programs, including the Marshall Plan, that fed malnourished kids. The combination of school meals and infant feeding helped saved Europe from famine after the war.

Today, we must also be providing meals to starving children in Gaza, Sudan, Yemen, Haiti, Ethiopia, D.R. Congo, Burkina Faso and other countries at risk of famine.

We need to get the spotlight on these hungry children so more aid can reach them. March Madness offers an opportunity to do this and take action against hunger.