I posted recently about the Food Stamp Challenge.
I don't wish to take away what the Representatives are doing, I think it is brave and terrific, but let us not forget that the whole point is, living on a food stamp allowance is hard!
Blogger kactus is a single mother, living in Milwaukee with her daughter.
She is on a real life Food Stamp Challenge, except hers isn't for just a week, or to bring awareness to the issue. Sadly, the challenge of feeding herself and her daughter with the food stamp allotment is what she does every day.
She has begun blogging her experiences in "Food Stamp Chronicles"
For ease of following along, here are her posts so far, in chronological order.
Food Stamp Chronicles, week one.
Week one, part two.
More Chronicles.
Chronicles, post four.
The Meat Deal.
Week Two.
Week Three.
Week Three, part two.
Several things of note in these posts.
Nothing is easy when you're poor; transportation, getting the food home, access to what we often take for granted, all factors to make her choices more difficult. Something that particularly struck me was this; she bought her daughter a box of hot pockets to reward her for working hard at school.
Let that sink in. Basic food is a reward or treat. I'm not talking chocolate cake, or indulging in a pint of Hagen-Daz because your feeling blue, I'm talking about a young girl who gets to eat a hot pocket as a special treat.
This country must find a way to take care of its own.
I will be following her chronicles. As an aside, the Food Stamp Chronicles is only part of her blog. Much of what she writes is fascinating. I will be reading her site as often as I can; I think you should as well. I certainly appreciate what I have a great deal more after reading about her daily life.
h/t to Redneck Mother
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3 comments:
This country must find a way to take care of its own.
Yes. Exactly.
My mother divorced my father when I was 8. Since he only paid $17 a month in child support and she lost her joba t the Post Office due to the lovely policies of Reagan, we went on Welfare. Our neighbors were convinved that we were the richest people in town because of that. But I remember Mom trying to feed three of us on $50 food stamps a month We foraged a lot and the local farmers would also let us gleen, if they were kind. We also hunted road kill. We got pretty good at it. If you time it right, the squirrel will run into the wheel and brain itself, rather than under the wheel, where it will get flattened.
The thought of hungry children in this country makes me ill.
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