Swig campers call for social change to combat hunger

"Got any change?" the teens asked those sitting around San Francisco's Justin Herman Plaza, their hands outstretched, their faces blank.

The question was a rhetorical one, and the campers were performing guerrilla theater as part of Camp Swig's day of action last week. It was just a piece of the camp's annual, three-week, social action session called Hevrah.

This year's subject was hunger, and the group was educating the crowd -- many of whom had come to the plaza to eat lunch -- about the depths of the hunger epidemic both in the United States and the world.

Accompanied by a drum, they recited their lines.

"I'm afraid of being alone," said one.

"I'm afraid of becoming a statistic," said another.

"We filled up the landfills so full of trash and waste that we're looking for extra space in outer space," said a third.

In the distance people listened to the messages, and applauded the guerilla group. One woman accidentally dropped some spare change but quickly swiped it back up and continued walking on by after hearing it echo on the cobblestone.

Each year at Hevrah, high-schoolers at the Reform movement's camp in Saratoga spend the entirety of their session learning about the Jewish call to social action.

They are divided into five groups: lobbying, community outreach, art, tefillah (prayer) and, of course, guerilla theater, in which they prepare for the social action day.

By the time they got to Justin Herman Plaza, it had already been a full day for the campers, many of whom wore olive colored t-shirts -- designed by the art group -- with a Campbellesque soup can on the front reading, "Hevrah condensed social action soup." The directions for use:

*Educate.

*Donate.

*Participate.

The teens began their day of rallying against hunger by volunteering during the breakfast meal at San Francisco's Glide Memorial Church.

Then, under the leadership of the lobbying group, they met at the offices of Rep. Tom Lantos (D-San Mateo), Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) and Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). While there, they proposed their views for changing the welfare system and suggested ways to improve federal programs -- primarily the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), which is up for a Senate vote in September.

The day culminated in a tefillah service at Golden Gate Park.

David Leopold, an 11th-grader from Manhattan Beach in Los Angeles County, was a member of the lobbying group. He spoke to a representative from Lantos' office and was impressed by his experience.

"They really listened to us and respected what we did," said Leopold, "although afterwards, they admitted to us, it's very hard to actually get anything done."

Leopold shared some of the lobbying groups' ideas, including the allocation of $50 million for sex-education programs and the encouragement of TANF recipients to get a high school diploma "first and foremost."

He admitted that, "at first, for a lot of us, the topic of hunger didn't seem very interesting." But "once we found out how big the problem actually was, that it is a global problem," he completely changed his mind.

The topic also had a huge impact on Amanda Karl, a 10th-grader from Hillsborough, who serves as social action vice president of her youth group at Peninsula Temple Beth El in San Mateo.

"It's broken a lot of stereotypes in my mind," said Karl, a member of the community outreach group. "I used to think people on welfare weren't intelligent or were on drugs. But it could happen to anyone, like me or you. And it's everyone's job to help."

Community outreach held a car wash the week before the social action day and plans to donate the money to an organization working against hunger or make individual tzedakah boxes "to take back to our temples," said Karl.

"The goal of Hevrah is to take the lesson back to the community," she explained.

During social action day the group handed out pamphlets with some dire statistics about hunger around the world and in America. For instance:

*3.1 percent of U.S. households experience hunger; they frequently skip meals or eat too little, sometimes going without food for a whole day. Nearly 8.5 million people, including 2.9 children, live in these homes.

*The wealthiest fifth of the world's people consume an astonishing 86 percent of all goods and services, while the poorest fifth consumes 1 percent.

*Virtually every country in the world has the potential of growing sufficient food on a sustainable basis.

"All this is just astounding to me," said Karl, rattling off the statistics without reading from the pamphlet.

"The Torah says it's just bad luck," she added. "But if you can help you should. That's tikkun olam -- fixing the world. We need to try and fix what's wrong and we have an opportunity here."