GardenShare

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Thursday, October 12, 2017

Hunger 101 at SLU

Yesterday, I presented our Hunger 101 program for a class called "Literary Harvest" at SLU.

Since the students have been doing a lot of reading about food system and hunger issues, it was an engaged and lively group.  But despite their advance knowledge of the topics at hand, they learned a lot, as evidenced by some of the comments that came back on the evaluation forms...

  • The most important thing that I learned is that SNAP doesn't provide all that much money.  I think a big misconception is that people try to live off from SNAP, but it's not enough.
  • The most important thing I learned is how limited the options are for people to get help.
  • It was challenging and eye-opening to try to figure out how to feed two people on $3 a day!
  • I really liked how the offices (DSS, food pantry) were not consistently open.  This really shows how inconvenient it can be for people to apply for help.
  • Opened my eyes as to how hard it is for low-income people to have access to fresh, quality foods.
And, as I like to remind the students, they got to do all of this by walking around in one classroom.  Imagine how hard it could be when the services are all in different buildings, potentially in different towns.

If you are interested in a Hunger 101 presentation for your group, get in touch!

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