Could You Eat For Just $4 a Day?

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, September 12, 2010

What's it like for low-income people struggling to feed their families? Participants in the San Francisco Food Bank's Hunger Challenge are about to find out first-hand.

Bloggers, politicians, journalists, food activists and other concerned individuals are signing up to take the Hunger Challenge, by agreeing to spend just $28 per person for their entire food budget for the week of September 12-18. This is the third year for the Hunger Challenge, which invites participants to live on the same food budget as an average California food stamp recipient - currently just $4 per day.

The Hunger Challenge is all about experiencing first-hand what it's like to shop and eat on a limited budget, then sharing those impressions with others. Participants are invited to use blogs, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social media to relate their experiences.

California Assemblywoman Fiona Ma is among this year's participants, and has encouraged her staff to join her. Many taking part are food bloggers and recipe developers, who are creating low-budget recipes that can be shared with food bank clients [recipes from past years are available for publication upon request].

In 2009, via TV news reports and hundreds of blog posts, participants chronicled the anxiety of shopping with just $28 in their pockets; told how it felt to give up healthy - but expensive - fresh produce; tried to make tasty, filling meals with limited resources; attempted to explain to their hungry kids that some children go to bed hungry every night; and were surrounded by tempting food they couldn't begin to afford.

In 2008, seven Bay Area food bloggers and recipe developers first took the Challenge, sharing their trials, tribulations and recipes with readers. They had it even tougher than this year's participants, with an allowance of only $3 per day for their food budget. (The government's economic stimulus package is to thank for temporarily increasing the average food stamp amount to $4 per day, through 2010.)

A popular participating food blogger, Amy Sherman, of Cooking with Amy (www.cookingwithamy.com), also sent out Twitter messages about her experiences. One of her "tweets" was picked up by Ed Nicholson, Director of Community and Public Relations for Tyson Foods, Inc. As a result, Tyson offered to donate 200,000 pounds of high-protein foods to Bay Area food banks. The company also donated 100,000 pounds of food during the 2009 Hunger Challenge, via a Twitter campaign that rallied thousands of users.

Rules, tips, sign-up details and budget recipes, as well as more information about food stamps, are available at http://www.HungerChallenge.com.

Some Food Stamp Facts

- More than 39.6 million people in the US are on food stamps - up 18 percent from last year and 30 percent from 2008

- Approximately 3.2 million Californians (1.3 million households) receive food stamps each month

- 4.7 million Californians are living below the federal poverty line ($22,050 for a family of 4).

- The number of San Franciscans on food stamps has grown by some 52 percent since 2008.

- In California, a single person is eligible to receive food stamps, only if their yearly gross income is $14,079 or less. A two-person household is eligible only if they make $18,941 or less. And a family of four can't have more than $28,665 in income. In San Francisco, where the cost of living is particularly high, there are many people scraping by on extremely low incomes who still aren't eligible for food stamps.

- Food stamps are officially known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and the benefit is now distributed on swipe cards that can be used at the grocery store. Though in California, it's not exactly a "snap" to get food stamps. The state makes it so difficult to get the benefit, that California ranks last in the entire country in the number of eligible people who are actually receiving food stamps.

- Congress recently raided the food stamp budget to provide funding for other programs. In 2014, there will be almost $12 billion less for food stamps.

- The government estimates that for every $1 of food stamp money spent in California, it generates $1.85 in business for the state's economy.

About the San Francisco Food Bank

Hunger is a serious problem in San Francisco - with 1 in 4 children and 1 in 5 adults at risk of hunger. Every day, the San Francisco Food Bank sources, collects, sorts, inspects and repackages thousands of pounds of food, then distributes it to soup kitchens, neighborhood grocery centers, school programs and seniors in need.

The San Francisco Food Bank partners with over 400 nonprofit agencies to serve more than 24,000 households weekly throughout San Francisco and Marin counties. This year, the Food Bank will distribute 41.5 million pounds of food to the community this year - enough for 88,000 meals every day. Over half of what is distributed is fresh produce. For more information, visit http://www.SFFoodBank.org.

For more information, visit http://www.SFFoodBank.org