Schools Across America Race to End Global Hunger

Armed with youthful idealism and a desire to make the world a better place, students around the country are making strides in the fight against global hunger with ACF’s international Race Against Hunger campaign. Modeled after Action Against Hunger’s highly successful student outreach program in France, the Race Against Hunger aims to educate middle school students about the problem of global hunger while inspiring them to be part of the solution. Spring 2008 marked Action Against Hunger’s pilot Race Against Hunger in the U.S., with four middle schools participating in Chicago, Illinois. Five hundred students ran to fundraise over $10,000, displaying the extraordinary power of today’s youth to make a difference by turning ideals into action. In France, where the Race Against Hunger was first developed ten years ago, over 500 schools and more than 165,000 students participated in 2008, raising over €2 million ($2.5 million) to fight global hunger and malnutrition. Building on the tremendous success of the inaugural Race in Chicago, the second annual Race Against Hunger has spread across the nation, taking root in 21 cities with over 11,000 students from 42 participating schools! As one Chicago teacher put it, the Race Against Hunger offers “an opportunity to help students rethink some of our cultural habits that contribute to global hunger and perhaps to make a lasting change in their personal lives as well as lives across the globe.”