11.18.2014

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THE

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

M I S S O U R I

S T A T E

U N I V E R S I T Y More than 100 years in print

Volume 108, Issue 13 | the-standard.org The Standard/The Standard Sports

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Serving up hope for the hungry Missouri State holds events for Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week to help people locally and overseas

By Phoenix Jiang The Standard @pho307

People know hunger and homelessness still exist in daily life, but they may not have any idea how bad the problem is. Missouri State University holds a few events to give students the chance to show they care about the hunger and homelessness issue. Hunger affects 1 in 8 Americans, and homelessness affects 3.5 million Americans, according to the information from Community Involvement and Service. Missouri State plans several kinds of activities to wake students’ awareness about hunger and homelessness. The following events took place this past weekend: •Nov. 10-16, students joined the snap challenge to eat on $4.50 per day. •Nov. 14-16, Friends Against Hunger held Meals-A-Million, where students volunteered to help package food. They also raised money for this organization by buying bracelets, which donated four meals to Friends Against Hunger. Friends Against Hunger is a nonprofit organization built in 2007. Its goals are to help poor people and provide healthy meals in the United States and around the world. At the beginning, they only had 50 to 100 people working for the organization. They had to work the entire year to package millions of food.

Erin Snider/THE STANDARD

Volunteers measure out food to pack for those in need during the Meals-A-Million marathon packing event held Nov. 14-16.

Karen Wood, the director of Friends Against Hunger, said this is their third annual Meals-A-Million, and their organization plans to package 100,200,000 meals. Wood went to Haiti and realized how bad the hunger problem is there. She said she really wanted do something to help the people in third world countries. The following events take place this week: •Nov. 18, a movie night, where students can watch “Storied Streets,” a documentary about homelessness across America. It will show in PSU 315 from 7:30 to 9 p.m. •Nov. 19, HOPE Connection: MSU will help homeless people get vision tests. •Nov. 20, there will be a homelessness panel in PSU 400 from 6:30 to 7:30 p.m.

“We’ve got a pretty large homeless population in Springfield, as far as I know,” Alex Johnson, the director of Community Involvement and Service, said. People from The Kitchen, and some other homeless shelters, will come to the panel and talk about their lives. Students can have a face-to-face conversation with them. •Nov. 22, Crosslines Thanksgiving food baskets distribution to families who need food for Thanksgiving. Johnson said Hunger and Homelessness Week is a national campaign. “I think it’s a great way to spread the awareness to Missouri State students and the community about how they can affect and make a change to a world of hunger and

homelessness,” Johnson said. In 2013, the United States, the Philippines, Mexico and Haiti received 1,004,084 meals, according to information from Friends Against Hunger. The United States kept 300,000 meals, while about 900,000 meals were shipped overseas. Volunteers pack two different kinds of meals during Meals-A-Million. The cost is different with each kind of food. Macaroni and cheese meals cost about 17.5 cents per meal, and rice and beans meals cost about 16.5 cents per meal. Most of the money came from Prime Inc., friends, family, volunteers and several local area churches.

For students, by students

‘Contingency’ displays student choreography By Briana Simmons The Standard @SimmonsReports

The Balcony Theater of Craig Hall hosted a full audience for the 2014 Fall Dance Concert. Every element of the show is decided upon by the student choreographers. Using a variety of costumes, music and lighting, the choreographers have creative freedom to make the Fall Dance Concert a worthwhile experience for lovers of artistic movement. Every year, the Fall Dance Concert is put together by the students of a final composition course for dance and theatre majors. The course requires students to choreograph a large group dance, and Evan Henningsen/THE  STANDARD the only rule is that it must be between Students choreograph and perform original work in the five and eight minutes long. Sabrina Harris, a senior dance fall dance concert, titled “Contingency.” major, choreographed the majority of her piece, “Complex,” in silence. “It’s been a great experience being able to continue to pursue what I love and being able to grow in every area

that I need to help me pursue dance once I graduate,” Harris said. “Complex” features four female dancers dressed in burgundy leotards and a variation of shorts in the same color. Red lighting accentuated their costumes as they danced across the stage. Harris infused fast and sharp movements with slow and elongated ones to complement the music created by Missouri State University student Graham T. Howatt. Alex Grossman, a junior dance and nursing major, tackled the concept that time affects everyone differently. She played upon her theme well by using flexed hand motions to symbolize the hands of a clock and to grab the attention of the audience in the first few seconds of her piece “Transitus Tempus.” “It’s all about the movement,” Grossman said. “Transitus tempus” is Latin for “time passing.” Grossman toyed with how people respond to time differently in her choreography. Harris and Grossman said this was

their first time choreographing a piece at this caliber. Some choreographers incorporated skits; others used props, but each of the seven performances were unique and true to its title in the concert overall. “Contingency” is defined as “a future event or circumstance that is possible but cannot be predicted with certainty.” “We’ve all come different pathways to dance. I think the general consensus was that our futures are kind of uncertain as far as what we’re going to be doing and where we’re going to be. So we came together and made this thing, but what’s going to happen next we don’t really know,” Grossman said. “Even throughout the process of each of us creating our pieces, we all started with one idea and throughout it, it changed. It made sense within our pieces,” Harris said. Guests could donate to Art Inspired Academy, a local creative arts project that gives individuals with disabilities the chance to participate in dance, music, theater and art. u See DANCE, page 9

All about Thanksgiving How different cultures celebrate it, how to do dinner in the dining halls if you’re staying on campus and healthy swaps you can make. See page 4.


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11.18.2014 by The Standard at Missouri State University - Issuu