Mark Tibbetts, AmeriCorps Vista Health Partnership Organizer
Blog courtesy of Mark Tibbetts, AmeriCorps VISTA – Health Partnership Organizer at the Wichita Falls Area Food Bank
Printed in the @TimesRecordNews 29 July 2015
Food assistance is important for families who are not able to afford healthy nutritious foods during hard economic times. These challenging times can be caused by many reasons such as divorce, head of household(s) losing a job, a family member falling ill or the world falling into a recession. These are just a few reasons of why some families do not have money to afford food. The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) (formally known as food stamps) helps people and families get their lives moving in a positive direction. SNAP is intended to help low-income individuals and families eat healthier foods during their time of need. In fact, half of all new entrants to this program will no longer need these benefits within nine months.
This loss of benefits is less than most federal programs and is intended to empower SNAP recipients to work more or find jobs with higher pay. Families with the greatest need will receive more benefits. SNAP is helping to feed over 40 million Americans and 49% of recipients are children. This program is considered the most effective and responsive federal program to provide assistance to those in need during economic downturns. The story below is an example of how food assistance helped save a mother and her children to live a better life.
Divorce hurts families all over this country, especially when these newly single mothers are not fully able to support themselves without an outside income like child support. I know this as I was one of those kids who was raised by a single mother with four children that depended on child support. My mother was working two jobs and sometimes did everything she could to make sure her kids were fed. I recently visited Emma, a local resident in our service area, who had a similar story.
Emma’s ex-husband kicked her and the children out of their house and if that wasn’t tragic enough, he was not paying his monthly child support. She made the decision to move back to her hometown where she was on her own with the challenge of finding enough food for her children to eat. At first they were living with friends and she started the application process for SNAP benefits during these rough times, but food was not available immediately. With very little money in her pocket she had to make a tough moral choice. A choice that should not be seen as negative, but one that was necessary to make sure her kids had something to eat. Emma would go into the deli section of a grocery store and let her kids get some food too fill their tummies. She walked around as they ate and eventually left. She still feels horrible of having to make this choice, but it was a last resort.
Today is a different story…a happy story. Once she got on her feet there were no more “trips to the deli” for her children. Emma did express that she felt the need to make up for this by paying for a $100 grocery bill for a lady who could not afford her groceries at that same store. I am excited to also report that she now lives in a house, is growing a garden, receives SNAP benefits and recently found a permanent full time job. Emma’s goal is to get off the SNAP program in the near future and in the meantime she is learning how to budget her money to prepare herself for when that day comes.
Even though Emma had to make a hard choice to obtain food, it was a decision that helped fill her children’s hungry tummies. I know there are others like her that have to make hard choices to provide food for their children. Those in need rely on grocery stores, food pantries and churches to obtain food…which reinforces my thought of how important food assistance is. It is a temporary need to help people get out of tough positions and much like my mom, Emma is doing just that.
Wichita Falls Area Food Bank 