| James Williams Friday, May 31, 2013 |
Hunger is a very real thing for many families, and students are learning about it in a unique way through Long Island Cares, Long Island’s food bank and food pantry. This allows them to see what people go through every day to get food and help when they are out of work or not able to provide for their family.
The students use a website to calculate how much a typical day’s meals cost for each of them. They are assigned a person (name changed) who had been previously helped by Long Island Cares. Based on the person’s finances and situation, the students then calculated the money they have for food after they pay their rent, utilities, transportation costs, etc. The students were very surprised to see how little families had left to spend on food, especially compare to how much a typical meal costs.
They then went to a Social Services station to see if they were eligible for SNAP (formerly food stamps). Most students found that they made too much money to get this assistance.
When they went to the “Emergency Money” station, they were given a form to fill out. This form was written in gibberish and they couldn’t understand it (of course). This was to help them to understand how difficult it was for people who didn’t have an education or whose first language isn’t language to receive assistance.
Finally, they went to the “supermarket.” Their goal was to buy the most nutritious food for their families with the amount of money that they have. They found that they only had enough money to buy the less nutritious offerings, and no fruits, vegetables, or proteins.
This was to give students just a small glimpse into what it is like to be unable to feed their families. Many families on Long Island deal with this each and every day.
jamesw@longislandyellowpages.com Appears In: Local Events , Restaurants & Food
 |
|
||||
The LIYellowPages.com - Your Local Yellow Page Resource - (631) 306-2000 - Email Us | About Us
Categories | Cities | Career Opportunities | Link To Us | Terms of Service | Privacy | Search | Site Map | Advertise
All rights reserved. Copyright © 2016 by Long Island Yellow Pages™ | Publication by Long Island Media, Inc.
