Seventh grade students at Hartselle Junior High Schools participated in their own “hunger games” on Friday.

The event was based on the book “The Hunger Games,” which the students read earlier during the year.

Jeremy Simpson, youth pastor at West Hartselle Baptist Church, and other youth pastors joined with teachers to help teach the students valuable life lessons during the games.

“None of the games were individual events,” Simpson said. “They all used at least 10 or 12 team members to compete in each event. We wanted everyone to learn the value of teamwork and we used these team-building exercises to reinforce that.”

The seventh grade divided into 12 districts, just as it did in the book, and competed with each other in different events. Those teams collected points during the events.

At the end of the events, a winner was announced and the students got a chance to watch the movie at the end of the day.

Simpson credited the success of the event to the teamwork of local youth pastors and community leaders.

“We have a great group of youth pastors working together in our community,” Simpson said. “It’s great that we can work together for something like this.”

Simpson hopes the games can become an annual event.