Vermonters challenged to spend $38 this week on food
By Sally Pollak • Free Press Staff Writer • Saturday, November 13, 2010
The Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger is challenging Vermonters to spend $38 per person on food for one week.
This is the average benefit an eligible person receives from the 3SquaresVT program, a federal entitlement program that is commonly (and formerly) known as food stamps.
The campaign hopes to raise awareness of hunger in Vermont by challenging Vermonters to attempt to eat as though they had no resources except the federal entitlement.
Melanie Guimont, 33, does not need a simulated challenge to understand the difficulty of the task. She lives in Burlington with her boyfriend and their three children.
The family receives a monthly food benefit of $732, Guimont says. Typically, the benefit runs out before the month is over.
“It’s very hard,” Guimont said. “At the end of the month, no matter how much we try, there’s not enough. We’ll be low on food by the end of next week.”
Through a job-training program called Reach-Up, Guimont volunteers at the Chittenden Emergency Food Shelf. She also receives free food from the nonprofit on North Winooski Avenue.
“I use the food shelf all the time,” she said.
Guimont has learned how to stretch her food dollars, and offered advice to people who plan to participate in the 3SquaresVT Challenge:
• Always buy the store brand.
• Shop around for deals and sales.
• Use store coupons.
Guimont’s two older children get free lunch at H.O. Wheeler Elementary School in the Old North End.
During school vacations, when the kids are home, she finds it particularly difficult to keep her children fed, Guimont said.
“A lot of times, the food may not be what I want to give them,” she said. “They’re not big on vegetables.”
Ensuring that her children get healthy food, and enough of it, is Guimont’s primary concern, she said. This worry is heightened as the end of each month approaches.
“It’s stressful,” Guimont said. “If it was just me, I wouldn’t care. I always want to make sure my kids are fed and not eating junk food.”
She recognizes that in a tough economy, many people rely on the 3SquaresVT benefit. “I’m happy for what I get,” Guimont said. “It could be worse.”
Nearly 88,000 Vermonters receive 3SquaresVT benefits, said Angela Smith-Dieng, senior nutrition and policy specialist at the Vermont Campaign to End Childhood Hunger.
Data from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate Vermont is the nation’s sixth hungriest state, according to the childhood hunger campaign.
Hunger is on the rise in Vermont, in particular a form that experts call “food insecurity with hunger,” Smith-Dieng said.
This means adults are going without food, and portions for children are reduced and limited. Food insecurity is a more “intermittent” hunger problem, in which people sacrifice the nutritional quality of food in order to save money, Smith-Dieng said.
“The goal of the challenge is to really generate some public awareness around the issue of hunger in general,” she said, “and specifically around what it’s like for a food-insecure family that is using the 3SqauresVT benefit.”
Contact Sally Pollak at 660-1859 or
