Freshmen Make News With "SAFE in the Wide, Wide World"
Two freshmen at Dartmouth are making national news with an ambitious program to combat world hunger. During winter term, '88s Brett Matthews and David Steinberg founded Students Against Famine in Ethiopia (SAFE) to unite college students across the country in hunger relief efforts and in better understanding the underlying problems of famine. They have asked students at 3,000 colleges and universities to give up lunch on April 25 and donate the monetary equivalent to famine relief efforts in Ethiopia and other African countries.
Although the idea of giving up a meal for famine relief is not new - Oxfam has used similar methods what is amazing about SAFE is that two 19-year-olds are attempting to galvanize the nation's youth without assistance from any major organization. And they are doing it while taking a full course load. The scope of the effort has caught the attention of the nation's news media. Matthews and Steinberg have been written up in The Christian ScienceMonitor, have appeared on ABC-TV's "Good Morning, America," and have been interviewed on "The Voice of America.
The effort started out relatively modestly. Matthews went into the Tucker Foundation with the idea of just sending out a few letters. He said to The D that he thought it would be "a piece of cake." But by early March, he and Steinberg found themselves coordinating the mailing of some 9,000 letters one to every college president, student government leader, and campus chaplain in the country asking them to organize an April 25 give-up-lunch program on their campus. The pair researched the relief organizations responding to the famine; arranged for the printing of the letters, envelopes, and mailing labels; and organized a corps of 30 students to stuff the envelopes.
To fund the effort, Matthews and Steinberg made presentations around campus, receiving financial and other support from President McLaughlin, deans, and fraternities and sororities. They also solicited support from the 25 largest corporations in the United States and even turned to private enterprise for a day, holding a commission sale of Kenyan crafts in the dining hall. They also promoted awareness of the project by organizing faculty discussions and distributing leaflets on hunger.
Other colleges participating in the program were directed to send their proceeds directly to special accounts established for SAFE at Red Cross, Oxfam, and Save the Children. Half the funds are targeted for immediate provision of food, and half for long-term self-sufficiency programs. Matthews and Steinberg are asking other colleges to report back to them. "If everyone participates, we could raise as much as $10 million," Matthews had projected during the organizing stages.
An interesting twist to the media aspect of the program developed as the pair's names became widely known: Matthews is a look-alike for a cartoon character of exactly the same name, the hero of a Saturday morning series called "Turbo Teen." The fictional Brett Matthews is also a dogooder, fighting crime by transforming himself into a super-charged sports car. He is the same age as the SAFE cofounder. They have similar features and haircuts. They even own similar dogs. Said Joe Ruby, co-creator of the cartoon, "We were just aiming for a name and a character with an all-American quality. It looks like we guessed right."
Famine-relief fund-raisers: indefatigable 'BBs Brett Matthews, left, and David Steinberg, right
