Love it or hate it, math is something we can’t fully escape. It’s apart of most of our lives and usually for better. It can even help feed the hungry. Mathnasium of Viera, a math-only learning center franchise, in collaboration with the Children’s Hunger Project, set up a fund-raiser to raise money for those in need. The Children’s Hunger Project is an organization that provides weekend food packages to children who can not afford meals for the weekend. This is the first time Mathnasium has done this fund-raiser, which took place on the past three Saturdays.

“It’s sobering how many students there are that don’t have food to eat when they get home,” said Daniel Blomster, the Center Director of Mathnasium. “We help out a lot of schools and a lot of different organizations, but this one really hit home because it’s local. These are local kids that are in this position and anything I can do to help I want to do.”

The fund-raiser provided SAT test preparation tests for $100 a student with a $10 sibling discount. It was only open to high-school students. The fund-raiser was six hours long, from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Those who signed up spent the first three hours doing a practice SAT test under SAT conditions. After that, students had lunch, which was provided. For the remainder of day, the SATs were graded and the most-missed problems were reviewed.

The fund-raiser the brainchild of Ria Prasad, a freshman at Edgewood Jr./Sr. High, who is hopeful there will be more events like this one in the future.

“I started this fund-raiser in order to help those in need,” Prasad said. “We have already raised $3,000.”

All proceeds will go to The Children’s Hunger Project.

By Sami Ramadan