In the midst of mayhem and melodrama, turning in those last papers and preparing for upcoming finals—here is a reality check for the NIU community.

Just under a third of the world’s population is poor or hungry. Yes, this includes people in America, Chicago and DeKalb as well as people across the world in places like Bangladesh and Burma. To be more specific, poor and hungry can be translated into 1 billion people who are malnourished and 2 billion people who lack some essential vitamins.

But the World Bank is not giving up on those poor and hungry people just yet. In fact the bank is predicting that this problem can be cut in half within a generation. In its effort to help, the Bank plans to lend $4.5 billion for policy reform, $1.6 billion for education and $1.5 billion for health and nutrition.

Because the world does produce enough food to feed everyone, the bank proposes finding a way for proper distribution. As the President Lewis T. Preston said, “Global hunger is associated with bad policies—political and social—in countries that have deprived large segments of their populations of the ability to participate in markets and benefit from economic growth.”

In this brief time of the year when brotherly love and regard for those less fortunate than ourselves reigns, the World Bank is certainly living up to the season’s billing—proving once again that hope does truly spring eternal.

Although most people can read this editorial and say, “Yeah, I knew that already—tell me something new,” if the very busy people of this community take a minute out of their day today to think of that one third of our world that is a less fortunate, the pressures of upcoming days might weigh a little less heavy.