Students at the University of Massachusetts can donate food to the hungry simply by avoiding the Dining Commons on the evening of Tuesday, September 25.

Tzedec, a Jewish student group affiliated with Hillel House, has persuaded UMass Dining Services to make a contribution to charity for each student that willingly forgoes dinner at the dining halls.

According to Dianne Sutherland, a Dining Services dietician, Dining Services will approximate the cost of the meals not served. This money will be given to two charities – Oxfam and Mazone – that specialize in feeding the hungry. All money donated will be taken directly from funds from campus meal plans.

Students interested in participating should contact Hillel House by Tuesday, September 25, and register to donate a meal. Students on the Your Campus Meal Plan [often referred to as the Off-Campus Meal Plan] can then go to Hillel House, and swipe their Dining Services card. Students on the Resident Meal Plan, once registered, need only decline to eat dinner at the Dining Commons. Funds collected from meals donated by Resident Meal Plan students will go to Oxfam, while funds collected from meals donated by Your Campus Meal Plan students will go to Mazone.

According to Rachel White, a Tzedek Chair, and one of the charity drive’s organizers, the event was originally planned to coincide with Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement. However, some Jewish students decided that they wanted to break their day-long fast with an on-campus meal at Hillel, so the event was scheduled for earlier in the week.

Tzedek is a student-run, nation-wide Hillel group.

“We do a lot of advocacy and community service,” says White. As examples, she cites a charity dance-a-thon held last year, and a current project in which students are baking apple pies to be donated to the Amherst Survival Center.

This is the second year that Tzedek has organized a donate-a-meal program. The Dining Services Office annually holds a similar program in November.

All students, regardless of faith, are encouraged by Tzedek to participate in the food drive. Mazone, while a Jewish organization, supplies food to people of all religions. Oxfam, the other charity being provided to, is non-secular.

Interested students can contact Hillel House at 549-1710.