For over 50 years, young people have been doing the 30 Hour Famine event to raise awareness and funds for children and families suffering from chronic hunger.
The 30 Hour Famine is an event where people come together to help others and to grow personally – all while having a lot of fun. It’s an opportunity to:
If you’re new to the 30 Hour Famine event, learn more below and 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 event started.
Did you know the 30 Hour Famine event 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 movement. Ruth Roberts and 14 of her friends saw on television news reports of suffering children during a famine in Africa. They wanted to help and came up with the idea of fasting 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 participated in the 30 Hour Famine event so that hungry kids overseas could eat. In 2017, teens in 14 countries around the world organized their own versions of the event. Pretty cool Canadian export, eh?