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From Student Involvement to Professional Action

on  February 12, 2019

Back in 2009, I couldn’t imagine where I would be 10 years later: standing in a gymnasium in Brooklyn, New York, overseeing an event that was making an impact — on students, on staff, on the world and on myself. When I look back on my experience with Service N.C. State and Rise Against Hunger (previously Stop Hunger Now) in 2009, I knew the impact that many people could make with just a small dedication of time and money. Now in my role as Assistant Director for NYU Service at New York University, I get the chance to make that impact each and every day.I was fortunate enough to recently be asked to coordinate an event for 100 of our incoming students and quickly Rise Against Hunger came to mind as an option. To be able to give back in such a unique and fun way, as well as educate incoming first-year students about the impact that dedicating their time and efforts could make, seemed like a no-brainer.

Photos courtesy of Katina Pennington

I knew spending one Saturday morning packaging over 20,000 meals to go out to school feeding programs would have a long-lasting impact on these students and their futures. Many of these students aren’t immediately worried about where their next meal will be coming from, and taking this first step to understanding the privilege that we are fortunate to experience could be life-changing. I know it was for me.

Looking back on 2009 and one event a couple of years before that, I hadn’t done a lot of service in my community, and had not really considered why that was. I did not grow up in the most privileged of backgrounds, but yet I still experienced unearned privilege. Getting involved in community service in college and particularly with Rise Against Hunger, offered me an opportunity to understand what my privilege meant and how I could make a difference. Now I have dedicated my life to making an impact in whatever ways I can. On Saturday, January 26, in a gymnasium in Brooklyn, I saw myself in the students who were dancing to music and packaging meals to be sent abroad. That vision allowed me the opportunity to relive my past and see just a little of the impact I was making in my present, and hopefully on the future.

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About the Author

CJ Barnes is the Assistant Director for NYU Service at New York University and an ongoing advocate for Rise Against Hunger and the movement to end global hunger.

More Posts by CJ Barnes

Strength, Stability And Hope

The gift that filled Nelly’s table.

“We were yielding very little, and the crops could not sustain us the whole year,” Nelly remembers. As a mother of seven and a farmer with two decades of experience, the stress of inconsistent yields was all-consuming. A poor harvest not only strained her family financially, but also limited their own meals to just two a day. Their story reflects that of many in their fishing and farming village near a lake in the Karonga district of northern Malawi. Here, heavy rainfall makes conventional farming methods nearly impossible. The entire village is, quite literally, saturated in food insecurity — a reality that leaves families struggling to survive season after season without a dependable source of nourishment.

In 2019, Nelly began participating in Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience, a sustainable agriculture project implemented by Rise Against Hunger in partnership with the Foundation for Community Support Services (FOCUS). The project works with 3,100 smallholder farmers in Malawi’s Karonga and Mzimba districts to strengthen food and nutrition security by improving production methods, nutrition practices and household income.

Just one year later, Nelly was ready to expand the variety of crops on her farm. What land once only produced maize began to flourish with sesame, cowpeas, rice and groundnuts during the rainy season (summer), as well as maize and vegetables during the dry season (winter). Through climate-smart agriculture training, she learned new techniques like manure making, pit planting and mulching, crop rotation and intercropping. Equipped with these tools, Nelly’s farm began to thrive.

After the 2023–2024 growing season, she sold enough produce to purchase an ox cart. Her harvests in 2024-2025 season yielded over 500 pounds of crops, including 22 bags of groundnuts, seven bags of maize, 12 tins of sesame and three bags of rice. With this surplus, she was able to invest in a motorbike, which she now uses to transport African doughnuts (mandasi) that she cooks and sells — creating yet another source of income for her family.

The transformation reaches far beyond her finances. Nelly now has the stability to provide for her husband and children. “I am able to eat different food types, pay school fees for my children and fulfill the visions that I have made with my family,” she beams. “I am now sleeping peacefully without any fears of food or paying school fees for the children.”

Her leadership has also grown. Today, Nelly serves as a leader in the Harvesting Prosperity and Resilience project, teaching other farmers in her district to adopt climate-resilient, labor-saving practices. By sharing her knowledge, she is multiplying her impact — empowering her neighbors to experience the same transformation she has achieved.

Across Nelly’s community, food and economic security are on the rise. Lombani, a government extension officer for the region, explains, “I can see the community is being transformed in the sense that in the area, there is food, income and nutrition security. Development is also happening at the household level.”

Nelly reflects on what it means to invest in holistic programs that address the root causes of hunger: “We are now healthy people. Children are going to school after eating their breakfast, having high yields and different types of crops due to conservation agriculture practices. With the support from the project, we have food, and we can access other food items from the market after selling our produce.”

This is the gift that fills: a future full of stability, strength and hope. It fills tables with food, families with security and communities with the resources to thrive. It’s an investment in futures rooted in resilience and hope.