After Big Game last weekend, Stanford has yet another chance to beat Cal today. For this year’s Darfur Fast, Stanford will be competing in The Great Fast Off with UC-Davis and UC-Berkeley to see which school can recruit the most fasters. Sponsored by Students Taking Action Now: Darfur (STAND), a student anti-violence coalition, Darfur Fast aims to raise awareness and money in hopes of creating a sense of solidarity with the oppressed people of Darfur.

At Stanford, participants are instructed not to eat anything from the time they wake up this morning until tonight’s “break the fast” event at 6 p.m. in Tresidder Union. With the money they save by not eating, fasters are asked to make a minimum contribution of $5.

All donations will be matched by an outside donor and will go to the Darfur Stoves Project, which aims to give fuel-efficient stoves to people in Darfur.

“Fuel-efficient stoves require less wood,” said event organizer Stephanie Rodriguez ‘09. “Women have to travel far distances to get wood, and when they go to get this wood is when they are attacked by proxy militias.”

One fuel-efficient stove costs $20, and with Stanford’s matching program, a $10 donation will be enough to buy a stove. Stanford STAND hopes to generate at least $20,000 in donations today.

Seth Silverman ‘08, another event organizer, said that the results of the fast will go far beyond the actual money donated.

“[The fast] will create a real sense of solidarity,” he said. “Too often the people of Darfur are portrayed as only victims, but the survivors are heroes and courageous actors. Every day women leave the camps and face threat of sexual violence just to gather wood to feed the families.”

Though this year’s iteration of Darfur Fast has been marketed at Stanford as a competition with UC-Davis and UC-Berkeley, Stanford’s comparatively small student population makes winning the challenge an uphill battle.

“They are so much bigger than us, but we are so much better than them,” said Rodriguez.

Silverman said the competition transcends the rivalry.

“The competition is kind of a foil,” he admitted. “It’s really about rivals coming together for the greater good.”