1 out of 6
That's a pretty staggering statistic. So staggering that it's caused my inner skeptic to rear its ugly head.
Frankly, I do not have the energy right now to conduct proper research to profess a specific stance.
But I do encounter a lot of poor people. I spend much of my time in the trailer parks and on the "bad" side of town. I'm familiar with the scourge of poverty.
But it is rare that I enter a home where there is no food or very little food. Actually, I can only recall one occasion where there was not sufficient food in a home, even though many of my investigations include concerns of a lack of food.
On that particular occasion there was only a bag of pretzels in the kitchen and a few condiments in the fridge. The mother, however, worked a full time job and received food stamps. She was too distracted by alcohol to ensure that there was food in the home for her three children. The lack of food was due to neglect, not an absence of resources.
The families have food stamps. The kids get breakfast and lunch at school and even receive a food backpack for the weekend. Some of the schools also have breakfast and lunch programs during the summer.
I am sure that there are people that struggle with providing food for their family. Certainly, many people benefit from food pantries. But with all of the poverty that I encounter, I don't see it.
What I do see is freezers full of tv dinners and frozen pizza. I see pop and chips and cookies. I cringe when I walk into homes and find the baby sucking on a candy bar, a stick of Laffy Taffy, or a kool-aid filled bottle. I see big, flat screen tv's and Xbox's, instead of milk and vegetables.
May I be so bold as to suggest that the crisis is not one of hunger; it is, instead, a crisis of nutrition and resource management.
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