An Insight Into Local Hunger

Please take a moment to check out Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef's delicious, inspiring blog, especially this week's post that discusses the maximum food assistance for individuals living in King County.

That's $7/day.

For a family like us, or for Shauna, Dan, and their little bean, the maximum allowed is $18/day. That's $540/month.

The comments on Shauna's post are equally inspiring and informative. Give them a look, too. You'll be glad you did.

Oddly, $540 is just around the amount I'd like to spend per month. Why? Because I think that's all we need. I think we can eat well--organically, locally, deliciously--on that amount. But I am deeply grateful that it is a choice for us, an exciting challenge, a health investment, a way to accelerate our student loan repayments. Not a necessity. Not a do-or-die situation. Not scrounging for change or eating food that is nutritionally compromised. There are so many people who are hungry tonight--not just in third world countries, not just in the devastation of Haiti, but somewhere in your own neighborhood. And they're trying to eat on less than that.

I remember counting change with my mom during one of our more haunting episodes into her newly single motherhood, just post-separation from my dad, trying to figure out how to buy some food. We had to live on assistance for a brief time, and I remember it being so difficult for my mom to deal with that reality. I didn't care. I was too young to mind. But I never went hungry. I never got home and looked in an empty refrigerator or tried to make tomato soup from ketchup. There was a rule in our home that we ate for good health. It was my mom's best health insurance plan, she said. We were vegan at the time, which certainly helped financially. In our house, food was our first priority.

It has to be.

Just think of it. Hunger. Kids, adults, elderly. There's nothing like looking at the world through empty, hungry eyes. Perspectives shift. Faith fails.

I feel grateful tonight. And I am inspired to give to our local food banks on an ongoing basis.