Royal Oak Interact's Annual Hunger Banquet

Tickets at the door: $10 for one person, $20 dollars for three.

Royal Oak Interact, our city’s youth branch of Rotary International, is a community service organization at Royal Oak High School - we are a club led and supported by students passionate about helping other people, becoming more active and aware members of our community, and being conscious of global inequalities and how to combat them.

Every year, Royal Oak Interact puts on an event to increase awareness of poverty and inequality in food apportionment: the Hunger Banquet. Imagine you live in a world where a few grains of rice and a cup of murky water a few times a week are your source of nutrition. Now, you’re in a room with ten other people. One of them is being served an amazing meal of fish, risotto, roasted red peppers, and freshly baked French bread. You, on the other hand, receive a ration of disappointing, clammy, black beans - the Hunger Banquet makes that a reality.

While you may feel envious of that meal at the banquet, you have the luxury of being able to go home and supplement your measly bowl of legumes with a substantial and readily available second meal. However, in a poverty-stricken society, that second meal isn’t an option. Food scarcity is a disheartening reality that ravages a disproportionate and unrepresented amount of communities, both globally and locally.

The Hunger Banquet is first and foremost, intended to inform the general public about insufficient allocation of food. This is done by simulating the disproportion of food distribution by giving a handful of people in the room a fulfilling restaurant-quality meal, while the rest of the attendees receive a meager portion of beans, rice, undercooked potatoes, or something else of equally mediocre quality. In addition to a simulation, there is a presentation consisting of statistics, clips from documentaries, and stories of tragic experiences that stimulate interesting and thought-provoking discussion about the hardships that seem so impossible to live through, yet are facts of life for millions of other people.

Our membership enjoys putting on the Hunger Banquet because not only does it raise awareness for global hunger, but it reminds people that this is an issue closer to home than we think. This year, we’re expanding the reach of our event by offering the opportunity for attendees to apply their newfound knowledge about hunger by signing up to volunteer at a local soup kitchen, which we’re doing in hopes of allowing our members and our community to truly see the tangible impact of their compassion. The Hunger Banquet is an event that is enlightening and interactive (No pun intended…) that advocates for being more aware, globally involved, citizens while simultaneously encouraging others to do the same, prompting the kind of initiative that embodies the spirit of Interact.  

Program includes a presentation, dinner, musical entertainment from an ROHS student, a game, and a raffle!