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Fast Raises Haiti Awareness

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By KEVIN WIATROWSKI

kwiatrowski@tampatrib.com

Published: November 20, 2008

ST. LEO - Hoping to understand others' suffering, a group of Saint Leo University students and teachers went 24 hours without food to raise awareness of hunger in Haiti.

The fast was a project by the university's Haitian Education Project, which helps support the Marie Porte du Ciel Orphanage in Cap Haitian.

Project members raised about $100. They asked students to donate $5 - lunch money in the United States, but enough to feed one orphan for a week, they said.

Near the end of their fast, the participants gathered Wednesday afternoon in the tiny St. Jude Chapel to reflect on their fast and the poverty it was meant to highlight.

"What we're doing, fasting for 24 hours, is to learn what hunger feels like," said Rose Woodard, wife of theology professor Randall Woodard. "We become better people ourselves by doing that."

Father Dan Kayajan of St. Rita's Catholic Church in Dade City, spoke about his first visit to a soup kitchen.

"It began to break down some of the prejudices in my heart that I had about people in soup kitchens, people who are poor," Kayajan said. "The toughest thing is to begin to close up these chasms between rich and poor."

Senior Jacques Jeanty, 22, a native of Haiti, said he had learned a lot from his fast.

"It hasn't been 24 hours, but you've got to think about the people who have to do it for days and weeks," Jeanty said. "It gives you a new perspective.

Reporter Kevin Wiatrowski can be reached at (813) 948-4201. Keyword: Haiti Fast, to see more photos.

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