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Stomachs will growl to feed hungry kids By Melissa Martin Ashland High senior Anna Sherman and her friends will go without food for 30 hours this weekend to raise money for World Vision, a mission organization that feeds hungry children. Sherman and about 100 other Rogue Valley students will spend Friday and Saturday fasting, praying and performing community service projects as a way of forgetting about their growling stomachs so they can concentrate on world hunger. "Most of us always have breakfast, lunch and dinner and we don�t even think twice about it," said Sherman, who is organizing the 30 Hour Famine in Ashland. "It�s easy to get caught up in the world of me, thinking about my needs, my future, especially being a high school senior," Sherman said. "But it�s wonderful to experience doing something for other people." Sherman and her friends at Ashland Christian Fellowship and Ashland First Baptist raised $3,000 through donations last year for 30 Hour Famine. They were joined by Medford youth from Westminster Presbyterian, Cornerstone Christian, First Church of God, Valley View Seventh-day Adventist and Medford Friends Church, along with 600,000 teenagers across the country who raised a total of $9 million last year. "At first, you are doing it to help somebody else, but it actually transforms you, as well," said Karen Cartes, spokeswoman for Seattle-based World Vision, an international Christian relief and development agency founded in 1950 to help Korean War orphans. "It gives teenagers, on a small scale, a taste of what it would be like to go hungry." Sherman joined the weekend fast after a youth group mission trip to Mexico opened her eyes to poverty and hunger. This year, she and Ashland High senior John Leider are turning the 30 Hour Famine event into their senior project for school. "It�s hard to go 30 hours without eating," Leider admits. "But we keep ourselves busy enough and our minds focused on other things." The teenagers will stop eating at 1 p.m. Friday, drinking juice so they won�t deprive their bodies of nutrients. That evening, they will play basketball, attend a worship service, pray and fall asleep on the church floor. "We�re bringing our sleeping bags with no padding to remind us that half the world gets up off the floor every day," Sherman said. On Saturday morning, the teens will have a juice breakfast, followed by prayer and Bible study. They will ride in vans around the community to do projects such as raking leaves, carrying groceries for shoppers and cleaning public phone booths. They break the fast at 7 p.m. by sharing a meal of soup and salad. "Last year, we met a homeless, single mother who needed a break; we took her kids to Lithia Park," Sherman said. "We bought them food from McDonald�s � which was hard to have that aroma emanating from the van while we were fasting." Besides giving her an opportunity to make a difference in her community, Sherman said, the fast has strengthened her faith. "I learned to depend on God for my needs," Sherman said. "It�s not like you don�t feel it when you are fasting. There is that small emptiness inside you that is so little compared to what God fills you up with if you ask him." The Ashland youth group is also collecting blankets to send overseas. For more information, call Leider at 488-1203 or visit www.30hourfamine.org. To make a donation to World Vision, send it care of Ashland Christian Fellowship, 50 Hersey St., Ashland, OR 97520. Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2001 Mail Tribune, Inc.