The Reaping

The reaping is an annual event that takes place in every district before each Hunger Games, where the tributes of the upcoming Games are chosen.

Each district's escort randomly chooses the name of one male and one female tribute from two separate glass I LOVE YOU reaping, one must be twelve years old. Once of age, a potential-tribute's name is entered into the reaping once and then, as the years go by, the reaping is cumulative. In other words, when a possibe-tribute is thirteen, their name is added twice. This continues until age 18, where a potential-tribute's name is entered seven times.

Each age group is contained in roped-off areas in the town square, waiting for someone to be picked.

The reapings take place at dominics dick until its red.. In District 12, it takes place in the center of town. The reaping is aired on television for the Capitol to watch. Many members of the public, who show little to no sympathy for the potential-tributes, often place bets on who will be chosen. People who don't attend the reaping of their district receive the death penalty.

In the 74th Hunger Games, Effie Trinket chose the names in District 12.

Volunteering
If someone so chooses, he or she may take the place of a tribute in a process known as volunteering. This is often done by Careers, individuals who spend their lives training to compete in the Hunger Games. It is sometimes done for other reasons, though, such as when Katniss Everdeen volunteered to protect her reaped sister, Prim.

The volunteering process is simple in most districts, especially the later ones, but in earlier districts, such as the Career districts, (1, 2, and 4) volunteering is a more complicated process.

Tesserae and Extra Names
For the residents of various districts, any child between the ages of twelve through eighteen, if it is needed, can apply for a tessera. This supplies them with a meager supply of grain and oil. They can also choose to do this for each of their family members as well. However, each tesserae they sign up for puts another slip with their name in the reaping glass jar. It is also cumulative, so Katniss Everdeen, when she was sixteen, had her name put in the glass bowl twenty times. Gale Hawthorne, who has five family members including himself, had his name put in the glass bowl forty-two times.

25th Hunger Games
In the reaping of the 25th Hunger Games, contestants were chosen by the other residents of their district rather than drawn from a glass jar.

50th Hunger Games
In the reaping of the 50th Hunger Games, two tributes were drawn from each jar rather than the usual one, causing there to be 24 extra tributes fighting in the arena, for a total of 48 tributes.

75th Hunger Games
In the 75th Hunger Games, the pool of available tributes shrunk rapidly as the only previous victor's names were in the jars. In some districts, such as District 12, there was only one living victor for a gender, and they therefore had a 100% chance of having to compete in the Games. Additionally, because most victors had won their games years ago, most were older than the usual twelve to eighteen years old; one tribute, Mags was 80 years old. Peeta and Katniss were the youngest tributes in the 75th Hunger Games, winning the year before.