A Mile in their Shoes

November 26th, 2008 at 11:13 am

To kick off Dayton’s annual Food Stamp Challenge, ONE WSU held a Poverty Banquet to show how extremely difficult it is for people to live on food stamps alone. About 25 people came and we served boxed Mac & Cheese to the majority, while only two people were served hot pizza, and three people got nothing at all. We wanted to show our campus how America eats and what domestic poverty feels like. We had speakers from ONE partner organization, Bread for the World, as well as the Department of Job and Family Services, Montgomery County. The speakers told our group about US poverty in relation to world poverty and what it was like to live on food stamps.

For 7 days, we lived on about $1.27 per meal which is on average, what food stamps amount to in Ohio. It was miserable! Together, as ONE, we can fix this. We need to fix this because although we think it is horrible in the United States, people in third world countries do not get offered food stamps, and sometimes have to eat mud to keep their bellies full. As ONE, we need to do something about this.

-Jenny Otto, Wright State University