By Ana Ruiz Brictson | Staff Writer
Student members for Compassion International encourage others to participate in their #1day190 challenge beginning March 21.
San Diego senior and member of Compassion International Maddie Fossler said the campaign was created by strategic partnerships fellow of Compassion International Lydia Dickens.
“The whole point of this campaign is to raise awareness that people living in poverty live on $1.90 a day,” Fossler said.
The challenge was created for students to bring awareness to how people who live in extreme poverty live every day. It involves students only getting meals worth $1.90 for a day and posting it on their Instagram stories to show others what a meal this price looks like.
Fossler also said this is a way to make college students feel like they also have a voice and a platform to advocate on the topic.
“Usually these campaigns will kind of have a big ask, or they’ll ask sponsors or people maybe from an older demographic to donate money,” Fossler said. “But this campaign — the point of it isn’t really to just raise money; it’s to raise awareness.”
According to Houston sophomore and founder of Compassion International at Baylor Maggie Summerlin, this campaign is meant to bring other world experiences to Baylor and show how many students have multiple options when it comes to choosing what to eat while there are people close to campus living off of $1.90 meals.
“Not everybody gets to walk into the SUB and buy fries and a sandwich,” Summerlin said. “Some people have to be like, ‘OK, today I’m going to have three nuggets,’ or, ‘I’m going to have one order of small fries,’ instead of the whole meal.”
Throughout campus, flyers are being passed around to let students know more about this challenge.
Summerlin said this is the first time the challenge is being held, and she hopes it will happen again in the future.
“It is a really awesome opportunity to get involved with the mission of compassion just by using social media, which is really awesome,” Fossler said. “And it is a very tangible way to show you’re following the way that poverty is impacting the globe and just to give that strong visual.”
Summerlin is currently working to create a Compassion International group on campus to encourage students to be more involved in service projects. She said the club will most likely be ready to accept members by the end of this semester, and any students who are interested are welcome.
