40 Hour Famine 03 – breaking all records

The 40 Hour Famine, New Zealand’s biggest youth fundraising event, broke all previous records this year, raising $2.7million for needy children overseas.

“This is 10 per cent up on last year, and has beaten our previous record of $2.57 raised in 2001,” says Executive Director Helen Green. “It’s a tribute to New Zealanders’ ongoing generosity, and it means we can be even more effective in our Famine-funded projects overseas.”

Mrs Green says the success of the Famine, now in its 28th year, is largely due to the commitment of nearly a thousand volunteers throughout the country.

“These kind of events can easily flourish for a few years and then enthusiasm wanes but the 40 Hour Famine goes from strength to strength. Thanks to teachers, Famine organisers, senior students, radio stations, the press, and everyone who gets in behind this event, it’s become a national institution.”

Money from this year’s 40 Hour Famine will assist street children and victims of exploitative child labour in Africa and Asia. It will also support food relief programmes in several impoverished African countries. About 135,000 mainly young people participated.

Picture: Rather than go hungry, students from Wellington College and Wellington Girls’ College staged a fun run, and circled the Basin Reserve 20,000 times raising a whopping $43,000. Wellington College wants to challenge other boys’ schools to raise as much in an alternative famine. Photo: Kent Blechynden, The Dominion-Post.