ISU students have an opportunity to impact the hungry with a creative twist and just $1 this week.

The fifth-year landscape architecture class and the Des Moines Area Religious Council’s Move the Food program are teaming up to host Cash Out Hunger to help the hungry and support the Greater Des Moines Area Food Pantry Network.

Stands are located at the College of Design, Union Drive Community Center and Parks Library from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. until Friday. Every dollar donated will result in a plate being displayed in representation of the amount of meals provided to area residents.

This is the first year faculty in the College of Design created this project requirement for the senior landscape architecture studio class.

“The cash drive goes a lot further than actual food given,” said Spencer Sneller, senior in landscape architect.

The cash donation will go as far as six times further than nonperishable food items in helping the Des Moines Area Religious Council provide meals for even more people.

Taking it a step further, plates will be placed into an art installation located on Central Campus on Wednesday from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.

According to the Religious Council’s website, “Each year, DMARC provides short-term food assistance for about 30,000 people, including nearly 15,000 who are children or youth under the age of 25 years. Food requests in 2011 are on pace to be the highest ever, with 7 percent more people asking for help.”

“In any situation, any point of life, you could be in this situation,” said Jessica Perreault, senior in landscape architecture. “What goes around comes around.”

Every year, 9,000 people benefit from the efforts of DMARC and organizations such as Cash Out Hunger, according to the event flyer.

Sneller said that as the week progresses, students seem to be responding well to this and it’s only been the first day.

“It’s something everyone can take part in, in a more traditional way of giving,” Sneller said.

Hunger is something people tend to believe will never happen to them, when, in reality, with poverty and unemployment rates at levels not seen in decades, it can happen to people you least expect, Sneller and Perreault said.