Skip to footer

'The Hunger Games' movie attracts campaigns to fight real-world hunger

'The Hunger Games' stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth urge fans to fight hunger. But some fans are forming their own hunger campaign – 'Hunger is Not a Game' – using the hashtag #NotAGame.

|
AP Photo/Lionsgate, Murray Close
Jennifer Lawrence portrays Katniss Everdeen in a scene from the movie 'The Hunger Games,' opening March 23, 2012. The movie has spawned fan-based efforts online to fight hunger in the real world.
  • By Gregory M. Lamb Staff Writer

Lionsgate, the producers of "The Hunger Games," the movie opening tonight that some think could be the next "Harry Potter" blockbuster series, knew that the title of the fantasy film aimed at teens and young adults would bring to mind the problem of hunger in the real world.

The film has made an official partnership with The World Food Programme (WFP) and, in the United States, the charity Feeding America. A special website, wfp.org/hungergames, features a brief video with "The Hunger Games" stars Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, and Liam Hemsworth urging the film's fans to fight hunger. The site also features a "hunger quiz" and ways to click and donate online.

A press release issued by the WFP and Feeding America last month notes that hunger affects 1 in 7 people – nearly 1 billion people worldwide. And in the United States alone, 1 in 6 Americans, nearly 49 million people, face hunger.

“This partnership will help us spread the word that hunger is the world’s greatest solvable problem,” says Nancy Roman, WFP's director of communications. “We want to tap into that excitement.... We are deeply grateful for the support of Suzanne Collins, [the author of 'The Hunger Games' books,] who writes as though she understands hunger in the world, as well as Lionsgate and 'The Hunger Games' cast – who have the power to change lives as they feed people worldwide.”

But fans are also spreading the word themselves. Imagine Better, an effort that originated with fans at the Harry Potter Alliance, has begun a "Hunger Is Not a Game" campaign, calling on fans to donate to Oxfam America's Grow project, which emphasizes helping people around the world grow more of their own food, rather than relying on imported food aid.

Imagine Better has asked fans to use the Twitter hashtag #NotAGame to raise awareness of Oxfam's Grow project and the issue of hunger.

• Sign up to receive a weekly selection of practical and inspiring Change Agent articles by clicking here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to 'The Hunger Games' movie attracts campaigns to fight real-world hunger
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Making-a-difference/Change-Agent/2012/0323/The-Hunger-Games-movie-attracts-campaigns-to-fight-real-world-hunger
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe