We’ve been hearing quite a bit about efforts to fight hunger these days. First, Sir Bob Geldolf recently announced five concerts around the world to be held July 2, just days before the G8 summit in Edinburgh, Scotland. Geldolf organized the massive 1985 Live Aid concert to raise funds to send relief to people suffering from a famine in East Africa, this time around the concert is seeking political change: a commitment by the G8 to adopt a debt relief and aid plan for some of the world’s most impoverished nations constructed by the Africa Commission.
We read in the Post last week that the Live8 organizers had hoped to throw their massive free U.S. concert on the National Mall, but the space was already occupied by the Smithsonian’s Folklife festival and major events usually require a year of planning. The organizers (in the U.S. it’s the One Campaign) settled on the Museum of Art in Philadelphia. If you can make it up there July 2, the free concert will feature Will Smith, Bon Jovi, Maroon 5, P Diddy, Stevie Wonder, Jay-Z, Dave Matthews Band, Sarah McLachlan, Rob Thomas, Keith Urban, 50 Cent, and the Kaiser Chiefs.
Closer to home, we read in the Post this weekend about an event at the National Cathedral yesterday connected to a major conference on hunger and poverty at American University. Tomorrow some participants of the conference will rally at the MCI center before heading up to the hill to lobby for a bill designed to fight hunger here in the U.S. Finally, although the D.C. nonprofit Bread for the City held their “Spring for Food” event wrapping up a spring food drive last Saturday, we imagine they won’t turn down additional donations of food or labor this summer.
