Nelson Food Cupboard hosts Chew on This
By Contributor
The Nelson Food Cupboard is hosting a unique and exciting community event called “Chew on This…” to coincide with Homelessness Action Week and World Food Day on Thursday (October 16).
Chew on This… is a challenge to the community to discover what it is like to have a food budget similar to somebody living in poverty.
It is designed to highlight the inadequacies of current Provincial allowances for social assistance, disability pensions and minimum wage and raise awareness around what it is like to have to rely on food banks and other social agencies for food.
“You may have started to see our advertising around town” says Food Cupboard Coordinator Kim Charlesworth, “we are encouraging the entire community to participate through the Do the Math online survey at www.foodcupboard.org/chew-on-this/.
It will make you think about what you would need to make ends meet if your situation changed and you had to rely on social assistance by comparing your results to what a person making minimum wage, on disability, or social assistance receives each month. ”
“We have also challenged specific community leaders to eat for eight days like many of our Food Cupboard customers do – on only what they receive from food banks and Our Daily Bread.”
The kick-off luncheon for the Community Leader Challenge is Thursday at Our Daily Bread with Food Cupboard customers sharing their experiences with the participants of living in poverty and trying to eat.
The Wrap Up and Community Awareness Celebration will be October 23 6 p.m. at the Nelson United Church.
The public is welcome to attend and enjoy a delicious local harvest dinner celebrating simple but nutritious cooking – the kind that could be enjoyed with ingredients from the Food Cupboard.
Several community members who took the challenge will share their stories, and there will be a discussion about how to help our community reduce poverty. Entrance by donation.
