7th Annual Hunger Awareness Dinner

Join Us Making Progress (JUMP) will hold its seventh annual Hunger Awareness Dinner on Wed, May 5 (Cinco de Mayo) at 7 pm in the Commons at Sonoma State University (SSU). The event will engage participants in a dramatization of the unequal distribution of resources and wealth in the world. Few will leave the Hunger Awareness Dinner with full stomachs, but all will leave with a greater understanding of the problems of global hunger and poverty, and the motivation to do something about it.

The keynote speaker for the evening will be Maria Elena Martinez, Global Alternatives Associate at the Center for the Study of the Americas (CENSA). Maria holds a PhD from the University of California at Berkeley and runs the 'Oficina 2 de Octubre' that provides services to social movements in the South, specifically to the Via Campesina. She was the executive director of Corpwatch.org in San Francisco, and co-founder and director of
Desarollo Alternativo, a Mexican non-profit organization working on alternatives to corporate globalization for rural areas. Martinez was also formerly the Mexico Program Coordinator at Food First/The Institute for Food and Development Policy in Oakland, California.

The event is open to the public. Tickets will be available at the door and cost $3 for one or $5 for two. Proceeds will be donated to hunger and homelessness relief organizations. For more information, contact JUMP at (707) 664-4277.

- Natalie Townsend, 2003-2004 JUMP Chair