WHEN: Tuesday, November 13th-19th as part of National Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week
WHERE: In your Community, grocery store, and kitchen
HOW: Register on our website and live on a 3SquaresVT budget for a week – spend only $38 on food for the week (for a single person, guidelines for larger households Challenge Packet). Then share your experience with others here on our blog. All registrants will be entered into a drawing for a gift certificate to Bluebird Tavern in Burlington so sign up for the Challenge today!
WHY: 3SquaresVT (formerly food stamps) is the nation’s single most important program in the fight against hunger, designed to improve the nutrition and food purchasing power of people with limited incomes. The program makes a difference in the lives of 45 million Americans (93,000 Vermonters) every day, but in some cases, the benefits are too low to allow families to purchase nutritious food on a consistent basis. The 3SquaresVT Challenge seeks to help us understand first hand what it is like to try to make ends meet on the average 3SquaresVT benefit — approximately $1.80 per meal (for one person) – and encourages us to work together to raise awareness about hunger and build a strong nutrition safety net for those in need.
I just received word that my family and I will finally receive 3squares (we've been applying since july) and our budget will be $77.50 a week for a family of five. The suggested budget for a family our size is $120. Luckily, we've been going without food for so long, $77.50 is huge! This is obviously not something I'm proud of, but after losing a job, and my husband getting a pay cut we need all the help we can get to feed our children and ourselves.
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