SNAP provides monthly benefits to eligible low-income people to purchase food. The average benefit for a single person is $4.40 per day, or $132 a month. I decided to take the SNAP Challenge for five days, which meant I could only spend $22 on food during this time.
In this guest post, Nancy Parello, of Advocates for Children of New Jersey, talks about partnerships and other effective strategies that have increased participation in the state’s Summer Nutrition Programs.
The problem of food insecurity among households with people with disabilities would be far worse if not for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps). In an average month in 2015 (pdf), SNAP served an estimated 4.5 million households that included a person with a disability — 1 in 5 of all SNAP households.
FRAC’s Hunger Doesn’t Take a Vacation report finds that 3 million children participated in the Summer Nutrition Programs on an average weekday in July 2016.
I joined FRAC’s communications team with the hope of learning more about public health policy and advocacy and the nonprofit sector more generally. My internship has been deeply rewarding.
