According to the Iowa Food Bank Association 229,500 Iowans including 80,190 children are having to make tough decisions on buying groceries or paying bills. Maybe you can relate in some shape or form or you know someone who can.
I would like to share with you an experience that Ryan and I had in our 20’s. We started our family at a young age. There were times we had to make those tough decisions between groceries or bills. I remember we even swallowed our pride at one point and filled out the application for food stamp assistance. It was the first of the month and our first time using our food stamps. I was running point on the process and really had no clue how the system worked. We loaded our son up after Ryan made a grocery list for the month and off to Aldi’s we went. I remember it was extremely busy and we had a cart load. We stood in line to what felt like forever.. as we got to the cashier I whispered “we are using food stamps“. As the cashier ran the EBT card they looked back and said it was declined.. We had no money at that point we just finished paying all of our bills. We had to walk away without any groceries that day.
I often think of that moment when we are grocery shopping and see abandoned carts of groceries.. Was that cart a decision that was made and bills won?
I also recently read an article regarding the Des Moines Food Pantry Network (DMARC) saw their highest day of customers just this last September..and their busiest month in August of 2023.
When we purchased this farm and started to carve out a space for our market garden we knew we wanted to have the ability to accept programs like SNAP and WIC. It was actually a priority for us. We wanted to be able to provide low income families with the same opportunities to eat fresh produce grown using sustainable practices that everyone else had access to.
We had to take classes and continue to enroll yearly for some of these programs. We knew the value and impact that these programs can have on a family in need.
What we have found is that we do not have very many customers who utilize the service we offer and we want to take a more proactive approach to let families know that we proudly accept these programs at the farm.
We did after all utilize some of these services when we needed them and we didn’t have the accessibility of purchasing fresh produce grown responsibly when we were using these resources.
If our farm gives even just one family in need the ability to eat fresh produce grown using sustainable practices we have succeeded in our goal.
Moral of the story.. There is likely more to the story than it just being an abandoned cart of groceries. Remember that next time you see one. ✌🏼Jamie
Moral Of The Story 