Daily News Photo by CRISTIAN SIMESCU Jordan Heller, 9, makes do with a small portion of rice off a banana leaf as K'anna Fuller, 15, serves Josh Walters a full plate of rice, chicken, beans and salad at a table using cutlery during a fundraising dinner at

ST. CROIX - AZ Academy students organized a dinner Tuesday evening at the school symbolizing the disparity of food distribution around the world.

AZ Academy director Paula Heller said the school's students have been working on a project studying hunger and poverty in the territory and around the world since the beginning of the school year. She said they have been working at the school educating students about hunger and poverty, as well as looking for solutions to create change in their own community.

"We were hoping to brainstorm how we can solve this problem at a local level and come together collectively and think how we can make a change," Heller said.

Donations from Tuesday's dinner will benefit Oxfam America - an international relief and development organization working to develop long-term solutions to end poverty, hunger and injustice around the world. Heller said more donations will be collected from the entire school before they are forwarded on to Oxfam.

During the dinner, the invited guests - students and parents - were randomly selected and led to three different sections - one with chairs at a table, one with chairs without a table and one with just a tarp on the ground.

The first section, which represented the upper-income level in the world, were personally served by a waitresses and receive a dinner of rice, beans, chicken and salad on plates and with utensils. That group represented 15 percent of the world's population earning more than $12,000 a year.

The second section, which represented middle income levels, were served rice and beans. They represented the 35 percent of the world's population that make between $987 to $11,999 a year.

Those in the third section, which represents 50 percent of the world's population, were served a small portion of plain rice in a banana leaf, while having to eat on the ground with their fingers. People in that income level make $986 or less a year.

The students performed a skit they wrote dealing with food distribution injustices locally, in Puerto Rico and in the United States. They also offered some solutions, such as being less wasteful and becoming involved in efforts like the Project Homeless Connect outreach, which students participated in a few weeks ago.

Berlina Wallace, a guidance counselor at the school, said the dinner was a small slice of daily life around the world.

For information on donating to Oxfam, vist www.oxfamamerica.org, or call AZ Academy at 773-7909.