More than 500 students from 125 different college campuses will be traveling to the University of Wisconsin at Madison for the 11th Annual Conference of the National Student Campaign Against Hunger and Homelessness.

The conference will take place Oct. 15-18.

“The conference is the largest gathering of students to take action against hunger and homelessness,” said Julie Miles, executive director of the NSCAHH.

Miles said the conference is designed to give students skills and a specific plan to tackle the problem of hunger and homelessness. “It teaches the attendees how to mobilize volunteers and to turn their concerns into action,” Miles said.

Anna Svircev, chairwoman of the Wisconsin Student Public Interest Research Group and a student at the U of W-Madison, stressed that students have been at the forefront of several social change movements.

“This conference is proof that the spirit of community involvement and civic participation is still alive on college campuses,” Svircev said.

According to statistics from the NSCAHH, three to four million people are currently homeless in the United States.

The NSCAHH encourages students to provide leadership, energy, volunteer power and creative ideas to fight to end hunger and homelessness.

Students are not the only volunteers who will be present at the conference. Some of the country’s leading organizations in the fight against hunger and homelessness will be participating as well.

Martha Pickett, executive director of Second Harvest, the nation’s largest network of food banks, will speak to the group.

Organizations such as Habitat for Humanity, the National Coalition for the Homeless, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Americorps and Bread for the World will be conducting workshops at the conference, Svircev said.

She said the workshops will focus on teaching skills and promoting programs such as a campus-wide fast, food salvage programs and Hunger Cleanup.