Oxfam America Blog

Oxfam organizer Rasa Dawson.

Every year on the Thursday before Thanksgiving, thousands of Americans participate in Oxfam’s Fast for a World Harvest campaign—attending Oxfam America Hunger Banquets, skipping meals, or taking other actions to fight world hunger. Here’s Rasa Dawson, lead organizer for the campaign, with her thoughts on this annual tradition.

A few years ago, I organized an Oxfam America Hunger Banquet on a small college campus in rural Virginia. I remember we had high hopes that it would be a good event, but as we watched people pouring in the doors, we were shocked.  It wasn’t just students; it was professors, people from the local church, and community members—over 300 of them. 

Over the next hour and a half, it was awe-inspiring to watch the transformation in that room.  People shared food, laughed, told stories, and cried.  Three hundred strangers left the room not strangers any longer, but fellow travelers. They forged relationships because they shared the same fate that, as in real life, was given to them at random. 

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If you’ve been following the election at all, you know that Barack Obama’s work as a community organizer has been a high-profile issue in his campaign. I was at dinner with one of Oxfam’s organizers last week (said dinner took place at a sports bar in Kansas City, Missouri—more on that in a moment), and he told me that all the recent news coverage about organizers has led to a lot of questions about what he does for a living.

In fact, after accompanying an Oxfam speaking tour throughout the Midwest, I’ve learned a lot myself about what organizers have to contend with.

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