SNAP Challenge - Are you taking part?

We are now one week into September, which is Hunger Action Month.  Are you taking part in the SNAP Challenge, which asks you to live on the average Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly called food stamps) allotment - $4 per person per day for food?  The purpose of the Challenge is to raise awareness of just how hard it is for low-income familiesto put food on the table.

Jahn and her husband Gary have started the Challenge this week and are writing a blog about it, Meeting the SNAP Hunger Awareness Food Challenge.  In her first blog entry, Jahn details the challenges of planning a menu and shopping.  After careful planning and traveling to two different stores, Jahn had spent $54.07 or $27.04 per person.  Leaving just $1.93 for any contingencies.  Of course, if Jahn and Gary did not have access to a car, the trips to two separate stores would not have made sense either.  Check back in on their blog in the coming week and see how they are doing.

Margo Lynn took part in a SNAP Challenge earlier this year and wrote in her blog, My World and It's Full of Books, about her experiences.  I found Margo Lynn's thoughts about the whole process and whether or not it even makes sense, to be quite interesting when I started with the entry highlighted and worked my way forward through several additional entries.

Kai, one of Foodshare's staff members took part in a SNAP Challenge back in the spring of 2010 and he shared his experiences in a blog, also.  Kai tried to keep with it for a whole month, not just a week, but his final entry is titled "Week Three Blowout," so you can guess what happened.

And I took part in my own SNAP challenge back in 2008 and blogged about it, too.  If you go here, you can see my first entry and then keep hitting the "next entry" links to read about the rest of my week.  Like Kai, I did not quite make it to the end either, although for different reasons!

I hope you will give it a try for a day, a few days, or a week and share your thoughts, as well.