Hunger Challenge Introduction

People in America are hungry. Children in America are hungry.

An astonishing number of kids come home from school everyday and rifle through the cupboards, hoping that today will be the day they find a rogue pop-tart or or box of mac-and-cheese. An astonishing number of parents go without so that their children can eat a sandwich for dinner.

An astonishing number of people go without because they simply have no other choice.

So what do we do? We donate our time, money, and canned goods. We lament and empathize. We educate those that don’t know or understand. We do what we can.

But do we experience? Put our feet in another person’s shoes? Buy our groceries with another person’s budget?

This September, you have the chance to do just that.

Let me introduce myself. My name is Stacy and I’m taking the Hunger Challenge! I’ll be spending the week of September 18 – 24 eating on a budget that mimics Missouri’s food stamp benefits - $4 a day ($29 a week).  However, I actually live in Illinois, where the food stamp benefits are actually $5 a day ($35 a week).  Because I’m working alongside Feeding Illinois as well as Food Outreach, I’m setting my budget at $30 a week per person, as a compromise.

There are a few reasons why this challenge is especially meaningful for me. As a social worker, I’ve worked with kids who own one pair  of shoes, who have only a bag of chips for lunch, who go home to take care of siblings with a box of rice and the aforementioned mac-and-cheese. I’ve seen how hard their parent struggle to just…survive.

Another reason this challenge holds a special place in my heart is because of my involvement with Slow Food St. Louis. I moved to St. Louis just one year ago and knew exactly one person. Slow Food really helped me find a positive use for my time and meet some of the most caring and friendly people I have ever sat next at the dinner table. The Slow Food mission (“promoting fresh, local, and sustainably-produced food, biodiversity, and the preservation of food traditions”) is true to my heart and something I try to support in every aspect of my life.

So there you have it! Thanks to Food Outreach, I’ll be blogging on this blog as well as my own, Every Little Thing. Feel free to follow along here or on my blog (or both!). I’ll be blogging once a week until I start the challenge on September 18th, when I will blog daily updates.

(As mentioned above, you might also see me blogging over at Feeding Illinois! I’m supporting them in the Hunger Challenge as well)

My challenge motto? Educate. Participate. Challenge yourself.