The 30 Hour Famine is a great event. Essentially, participants spend 30 hours going without food. The goal: to get a taste of what it is like to be hungry (for many students, this is their first time fasting), to raise awareness about the hunger epidemic, and to raise money to feel children in Jesus' name.
For most of the 30 hours, we were together as a group doing different activities, such as worship, learning about poverty around the globe, and putting together "Manna Bags"--which include a clean pair of socks, a bottle of water, granola bar and crackers, and a list of local resources for those in need to hand out when one encounters a homeless person--to sell for $5 each at church (and raise more money toward our goal). At night, we slept outside on the pavement in cardboard boxes, which were ruined when it rained and hailed on us (we had to go inside at 2:00am for safety reasons when the lightning started).
There are a wide variety of approaches to the 30 Hour Famine, so the event can be customized for your particular group. Our students were impacted by what they learned as well as the experience of being hungry and sleeping outside int he cold. We will definitely do it again next year, and I commend it as a fantastic event for just about any youth ministry.
By the way, here's a video I created with Animoto.com from photos we took at the event.
