A group of 13 students at the Estevan Comprehensive School learned a lot about hunger last weekend.
The school held its annual 30 Hour Famine event, a World Vision program where participants go without food for 30 hours in order to raise money and awareness for starving people in other parts of the world.
Fifteen ECS students helped raise $1,592.50 for World Vision programs, with 13 of them staying overnight. That comes out to $106 per student.
There were a total of 61 donations.
"That's really exciting for us that we've been able to collect this much money for a worthy cause," said Alexandra Robertson, one of three staff members who ran this year's event.
Although they didn't eat for 30 hours, the students were allowed to drink juice "so that we didn't get low blood sugar and pass out," said Robertson.
With the large confines of the school at their disposal for 30 hours, the group passed the time by playing various games, including an altered version of hide-and-seek.
"I didn't think it would be that much fun, (but) we did a lot of activities. We were hiding in the whole school, which was a lot of fun," said Jennifer Krets, one of the students taking part.
"We've been all hanging out together getting to know each other, and you don't really have time to think about food or being hungry. Some people talk about food and you get hungry for a little bit, but you just get over it," she added.
Maquire Spilchuk, who was participating in 30 Hour Famine for the first time, said she expected "to starve and for my stomach to make whale noises, but it hasn't, so it's all good. It's not that bad if you just drink a lot of fluids."
Social justice president AnnaRae Gustafson was taking part in the Famine for the third straight year, and she found that not eating for 30 hours wasn't as tough as you might think.
"It doesn't really bother me all that much. I'm not taking the rice at all this year and I didn't take it last year either. I kind of like the idea of not eating, because there are lots of people who can't eat for like 30 days, and ours is only 30 hours.
"I really enjoy it. It's great to help people who can't help themselves," she added.
Jennifer, who was participating for the first time, said it felt good to be able to help out those who don't know where their next meal is coming from.
"I just decided to do this because some people don't have food and they starve, so I thought, 'Why not join something where you, yourself don't eat for 30 hours and see how you would feel after that.'
"It makes you feel like a good person because you're trying to help someone that doesn't have any support. It always feels good to do something good for someone else."
The students passed the time by playing games, watching movies and indulging in video games.
On Saturday morning, they wrote letters regarding two causes pushed forward by Amnesty International.
One of them involved harassment of mining activists in Guatemala and the infringement of human rights by mining companies there, and the other involved indigenous peoples in Colombia being put at risk due to armed conflict and resources being extracted from their lands.
The group also played a simulation game about food production, which saw the students divided into three tribes.
"Each tribe had a handicap that made it harder or easier for them to produce food. The point of the game was to realize that due to things that are uncontrollable by the people in certain areas of the world, it may be easier or harder to feed themselves. I think that was a valuable lesson for the kids to learn because in a first world country like Canada, starvation is kind of an abstract idea," Robertson said.
She added that the Famine was a valuable learning experience in showing the students first-hand what many people go through every day.
"I think that experiencing for 30 hours something that people around the world have to deal with on a day-to-day basis just makes the struggles of people in Third World countries a little bit closer to home for kids who may not otherwise be able to understand that kind of life," she said.
