I just finished making lunch for everyone this morning and we are running low or are out of most of our staples from the week. No more pretzels for after school snacks. Only enough bread and peanut butter left for one more sandwich. 2 apples (though we have 3 cans of fruit left, as well as 3 bananas and a grapefruit). 1 carrot, 1/2 a red pepper and green beans. No tuna. We have $22 left to help us get through Shabbat but we've run into a couple of problems.
1) Our oldest son is participating in his middle school's ski club tonight. He usually takes about $10 to pay for dinner while he is there. He lobbied the whole family pretty hard last night for at least enough money to get him some dinner. His arguments centered around the fact that he didn't want to stand out as the only kid who brought his dinner. It gave us all a small sense of the shame that families living with food insecurity must live with on a regular basis.
2) In our original budget we forgot that Brett's parents are coming in tonight from out of town. We will need more chicken for our Shabbat dinner tonight and more staples for tomorrow.
3) We have not yet bought a challah. Yes. I could have made one (though I would still have to buy flour and sugar and eggs (because we are also out of eggs) - but that was not in the cards for us this week. At least by buying the challah we will have bread for sandwiches tomorrow (though I am not sure yet what we will put on them).
We ended up giving Macey money for dinner. The whole family agreed that it was definitely do-able to stretch $12 to last for 2 more days - even with two extra people coming to stay in our home. But getting to that point was stressful. The emotional toll that families living in food insecure households must face is almost as difficult as the hunger the families experience.
Having said all of this, I do know that our sense of gratitude for the modest meals that we have been eating this week has been immense. I hope those feelings remain with us long after this week is over.
Can You Imagine What Hunger Feels Like?
FOLLOW THIS BLOG BY EMAIL by entering your address in the "Follow by Email" text box below on the right.
From Jan. 26-Feb. 1, 2014, members, staff and clergy of Congregation Shaare Emeth will take the SNAP Challenge and try to live on the average food budget of a Missouri SNAP recipient – just $29.25 per week or less than $1.40 per meal. SNAP stands for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (formerly known as Food Stamps). Why are we doing this? To raise awareness about the struggles faced by millions of food-insecure households, to experience first-hand how difficult it is to afford nutritious foods, and to renew our commitment to do what we can to put an end to hunger.Please join us by attending one of our hunger events, following our blog as we document our experiences (subscribe by email in the box on the right, subscribe to the blog feed, or check back daily), joining as SNAP Challenge participant and blog author, or participating in an alternate way. Let's all learn a little more about what it's like to live solely on food stamps.
No comments:
Post a Comment