I just wrote a piece for AlterNet focusing on how Bush’s budget is impacting organizations serving the elderly, children, poor, mothers, etc…
The point of the story was to get past the numbers (how many of you gloss over the word billion these days) and put a face to these cuts. Here’s a story about an elderly woman who receives a box of food each month though a program that might be completely slashed.
Every month, 80-year-old Sally Shaver pays someone to drive her to the Harvest Hope Food Bank in Columbia, S.C., to pick up a box of fresh produce, baked goods, dry cereals, juice, canned goods and cheese. “It really helps me out because after paying for my rent, phone bill and medication, I barely have enough for food,” she says. “If I could work, I would, but I have an artificial knee and a pacemaker, and I can’t get around.”
Shaver, who worked as a nurse’s aide for most of her life, brings in $451 a month in social security. Her fixed income qualifies her for the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which is designed to improve the health and nutrition of low-income senior citizens, pregnant women, postpartum mothers, infants and children.
Last year, CSFP provided 536,196 people with a monthly box of food. Bush’s proposed budget for 2007 calls for a nationwide elimination of the entire program.
“As a food bank, we are very concerned about this program. When you have a growing population of elderly in this state, how are we going to find other resources to replace it?” asks Denise Holland, executive director of the Harvest Hope Food Bank. “We have already been serving these seniors for two years, and they have gotten accustomed to this. I can’t turn people away in wheelchairs. My heart won’t let me do it.”
Holland says if the program is cut entirely, she’ll seek food and financial donations to ensure the neediest recipients continue to receive their monthly box of food. “Because they are on a fixed income, this box makes the difference between them not having enough to eat for the month to really being able to spread it out over the month,” she says. “When they experience hunger, their health is going to decline, which is going to cost us more to help them in other ways.”
The Harvest Food Bank serves 56,000 people per week in 18 South Carolina counties, but is only able to offer the CSFP in two counties because of funding constraints. Bush’s 2006 budget cuts forced the program to cut the number of boxes it offers from 1,400 to 1,200 per month and that’s just in two counties. More than 350 low-income senior citizens are on the program’s waiting list.
South Carolina ranks second nationwide for the highest percentage of hungry people and fifth for the highest percentage of individuals with food insecurity, according to the Center on Hunger and Poverty.