For almost 50 years, young people have been doing the 30 Hour Famine — raising funds and awareness to end hunger.
The Famine is a space where people come together to help others and grow personally — all while having a lot of fun. It’s a space to:
If you’re brand new to the Famine, learn more below and then sign up to get started on a great group experience. If you’re a returning group, thank you! You can log in to get this year’s Famine started.
Did you know the 30 Hour Famine started in Canada? 1971. A church basement in Calgary. A 17-year-old girl. That’s where it all started. Now, it’s a global event. Ruth Roberts and 14 of her friends saw the TV images of suffering children during a famine in Africa. They wanted to help and came up with the idea of a ‘starve-in’ at their church. “We chose to stop eating for a day and a half so we could understand, even in a small way, what those children were experiencing,” recalls Ruth. The group raised $600 for World Vision to help people caught in the famine. "It was just so frightening and so scary," says Roberts, "I just asked them this one simple question: 'Have you ever gone hungry?' And all 14 of us shook our heads and said ‘No.’ I wondered what it would be like, and that's where the idea came from." To date, nearly six million students have gone hungry with the 30 Hour Famine so that hungry kids overseas could eat. In 2017, teens in 14 countries around the world did the Famine. Pretty cool Canadian export, eh?