By Kelly April Tyrell
Breakfast was a piece of bread and some store-brand vegetable juice. Lunch was another tuna fish sandwich. Dinner would be spaghetti. Again.
There wasn’t a whole lot more John Carney, Delaware’s lone U.S. House representative, could afford to fit into his diet Friday. He had only $4.50 to spend.
“I’m hungry, my stomach is growling,” the congressman said, looking at his watch, shortly after noon.
In an effort to understand what people living on food stamps deal with, this week Carney and 24 other members of Congress are living off of what they can buy using Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, also known as SNAP. It’s part of a move to protest unwanted cuts to the program.
Carney visited St. Patrick’s Center in Wilmington, which provides free fresh produce, to see what other resources exist to provide food for those in need.
“This week, the Farm Bill was on the House floor, which is where the SNAP funding comes from, and it had a big, $20 billion cut, which I just thought was way too much,” Carney said, while handing out plump heirloom tomatoes to people at the center. “I’ve been trying to educate myself on the resources that are available to people, as well as the struggles people face. This is one way to do that and see it firsthand.”
Earlier this year, the independent, nonprofit Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported one in six Delawareans were living off SNAP benefits, an $81 billion a year federal nutrition assistance program administered by each state. Of the families receiving SNAP, 75 percent have children under 18 and nearly a quarter are have an elderly or disabled family member. Nearly half of them are in families where at least one person works.
When Christine Abraham got sick, she had to stop working. Now the 55-year-old relies on SNAP, living off a $30-a-week food budget. The price of a single large coffee beverage from the local barista is all Abraham has to spend on food each day, and it doesn’t cover everything. Not even close.
“After you buy necessities, spices, oil, meat, you can’t buy fresh fruit or vegetables,” Abraham said. “You can maybe afford canned on SNAP.”
Mike McDermott, chairman of St. Patrick’s board of directors, considers the center a “first responder” to the “raging inferno of food insecurity” in the city, where many people live without access to fresh produce. He values their role in feeding families and “restoring a measure of dignity” back into their lives.
McDermott said in recent years, the number of people visiting the center for fresh food has “increased exponentially.” On Friday, about 70 people sat waiting for their turn to choose and bag the mushrooms, raspberries, bread and apples they wanted.
The center typically serves 85-100 people on an average Friday, Executive Director Joe Hickey said.
The Food Bank of Delaware started a program last week, partnering with two locals farms, Highland Orchards in Brandywine Hundred and SIW Vegetables in Chadds Ford, Pa., to provide $5 and $10 a week in community-supported agriculture shares.
“It’s demonstrating to people that are on [SNAP] that there is an affordable way for them to take advantage of fresh produce,” said Patricia Beebe, president and CEO of the Food Bank. “You hear, for people who are low income, that stuff is too expensive.”
The program provides recipes and demonstrations to help people learn how to prepare the produce. Carney will be at the Food Bank of Delaware’s new Milford branch Monday for a community education event.
By then, the congressman will be ready for the Capriotti’s sandwich he’s looking forward to enjoying Tuesday, when his weeklong SNAP challenge is over.
Unlike the 155,000 other Delawareans on SNAP, he knows his food insecurity is only temporary. His grocery list for the week also included ramen noodles, instant tea, bananas, Lebanon bologna and cheese.
“I think if every member of Congress had to do this, they would have an appreciation for it,” Carney said, as the last husk of corn was given away.
