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Community Corner

Teens Hit Montgomery Streets to Fight Hunger Today

They will be collecting donations for the Kendall County Food Pantry in Montgomery and Oswego.

Some teens might moan that they are starving if they go without something to eat between lunch and dinner.

But Scott Casleton of Oswego knows the true sacrifice of fasting. Throughout the year, except for when he is participating in sports, Casleton fasts one or two days per week, reading the Bible during his meal times.

This weekend, Casleton will join other high school students from churches and youth groups throughout the area to partake in a 30-hour famine through World Vision as part of Famine Fest. The fast begins at 1 p.m. Friday. For Casleton, it was interesting at last year’s event to watch his peers’ reactions to fasting for the first time.

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“Kids aren’t like desiring to give up a meal. They think about how hard it’s going to be and ask if they can drink a smoothie or milkshake, like they’re trying to find a loophole,” Casleton says. “But once they experience a fast, they see it’s not just giving up meals but doing so for a greater cause through Christ to help other people. Fasting can be a very spiritual experience.”

In addition to the fast, participants also will have the opportunity to understand the gravity of hunger and poverty by constructing homes made out of cardboard boxes where they will sleep all night on Friday.

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“This (exercise) helps raise awareness of homelessness and the reality that people live in conditions like that,” explains Sam Perkins, director of Christian education and student ministries at Oswego Presbyterian Church in Oswego. “It happens in our community and communities around the world.”

The event also includes a concert at 6:30 p.m. Friday at ,1976 Route 25 in Oswego. The concert, which is open to the public, will feature local band As One from Oswego along with Fue from DeKalb and Leper out of the Jesus People USA community in Chicago. Admission is $7 per person or $5 per person with a donation of a nonperishable item.

On Saturday, from 9 a.m. to noon, students will split up into teams to canvass the neighborhoods of Montgomery and Oswego with a shopping cart to see who can collect the most nonperishable items or financial contributions.

The event concludes at 7 p.m. when participants will break their fast to partake in a fellowship dinner and see how much money and food was gathered. All money raised will go to World Vision and food donations will go to the Kendall County Food Pantry.

“It’s amazing that in third world countries, $360 could quite possibly save someone’slife,” Perkins says. He adds that the money is used to provide a child with food, water,clothes and education for a year.

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