About 200 students turned out last month for a powerful lesson in the randomness of hunger. At the second Oxfam Hunger Banquet on Nov. 12 at Fox Hall, students were divided into different groups based on economic status. The dinner they ate depended on luck of the draw. "While three students were plucked into the echelons of the upper class, and others experienced a middle-class dinner," the Tampa Bay Times reported in a front-page story the next day,  "most students were sent to sit on cardboard on the floor and eat vaguely cooked rice out of Styrofoam cups with their hands." The banquet, organized by Director of Service Learning Ron Porter and 10 students, was designed to show how poverty and hunger are often the result of circumstances beyond one's control. While some rise above, many are  trapped.

Sally Gardiner-Smith is continuing her sailing journey from Maine to Eckerd College, where she plans to arrive next summer in time to begin her freshman year and Autumn Term. The last time we checked in with Sally she had encountered a couple of challenges, including a serious injury to her dog, Elli, who lost a leg after getting hit by a truck. Elli has recovered enough to rejoin Sally on the boat. Sally celebrated Thanksgiving with her sister from Massachusetts, her mom from Maine and another solo sailor, Kevin, from Virginia. "Although our meal was much simpler than a many-course dinner with a large turkey and sides, I think it was almost as challenging to prepare," she wrote in her blog for the Portland (Maine) Press Herald. She is now in Oriental, N.C., on her way to Beaufort. She hopes to spend Christmas in Florida.

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