Times continue to be tough for our food bank clients. One in six Hoosiers is food insecure (essentially, at risk of hunger), and with children the number is as high as one in four. Hoosiers at risk of hunger live in EVERY county in Indiana. They are our neighbors, our families and friends. We may not know it, but the odds are there that someone we know has difficulty securing enough nutritionally adequate and safe food for themselves or their families. Someone down the street, someone at church, someone who goes to school with our children.
To experience living on an extremely limited food budget firsthand, Feeding Indiana’s Hungry will be participating in a Food Stamp Challenge, sponsored by Fighting Poverty with Faith, a national alliance of faith-based groups working to end poverty in the United States by 2020. In doing so, participants live for one week on the average food stamp allotment of $31.50, or just $1.50 per meal. The Indiana Challenge will take place from Thursday, October 27th through Thursday, November 10th. Participants choose which seven day period in which to take the challenge.
It won’t be easy, but personally experiencing the challenge of daily hunger will certainly help us to better understand the struggles so many Hoosiers face daily. Will you join us in this challenge? To learn more and sign up, visit the Fighting Poverty with Faith website, http://fightingpovertywithfaith.com/f2/?page_id=58. When you register, you will also receive up-to-date information from Fighting Poverty with Faith about the Food Stamp Challenge, the SNAP program, and continued opportunities for involvement.
If you’re not able to join us in the Food Stamp Challenge, please educate your friends, family, and coworkers who may be interested and continue to urge your members of Congress to protect food stamps and other federal feeding programs that support millions of Americans.
Indiana Kick-off Event
Please join other us in Indianapolis for a kick-off event on the evening of October 27th at 7:00pm for a screening of Food Stamped. We welcome you to this event regardless of whether you participate in the challenge!
Food Stamped is an informative and humorous documentary film following a couple as they attempt to eat a healthy, well-balanced diet on a food stamp budget. Nutrition educator Shira Potash teaches nutrition-based cooking classes to elementary school students in low-income neighborhoods, most of whom are eligible for food stamps. In an attempt to walk a mile in their shoes, Shira and her documentary filmmaker husband embark on the food stamp challenge where they eat on roughly one dollar per meal. Along the way, they consult with food justice activists, nutrition experts, politicians, and ordinary people living on food stamps, all in order to take a deep look at the struggles low-income Americans face every day while trying to put three-square meals on the table.
The screening of Food Stamped will be followed by a short panel discussion of experts in the administration and utilization of the SNAP (food stamps) program.
When: 7:00 – 8:30pm, Thursday October 27
If your organization or agency would like to be a co-sponsor of the Indiana Food Stamp Challenge through board resolution or other means please contact David Sklar, Director of Government Affairs with the Jewish Community Relations Council at d_sklar@indyjcrc.org or 317-926-2935.
