Washington DC

As someone who has taken multiple service trips to help feed the homeless in Washington DC, I find these statistics very interesting.

 

 

 

Its nice to know that the majority of the homeless have some type of shelter, but its sad how large this number is. It's also sad to see how many unaccompanied youth and veterans are homeless. It also makes me angry that more people aren't doing anything to help change this. 

Inspiration

Food Stamps in America

15% of the population is on food stamps. The majority of these people are not homeless or living in shelters. But people who can afford to pay for their living accommodations and other bills like heat and electricity, but that takes up all of their income so they can not afford food. Eligibility for food stamps depends on an individuals or a family's gross income. "To be eligible, a household has to earn a gross income amount that’s less than 130% of the poverty level, or a net income amount (gross income minus deductions) that’s less than 100% of the poverty level for their family size." This means that a person who's gross income is less than $1265 or a family who's gross income is less than $2584 per month are both eligible for food stamps.

 

Food Stamps in America are beneficial to many people , but they often have a bad reputation. Taxpayers often accuse people who use food stamps of being lazy and living off of the government. Well this may be true in some cases, so many people use food stamps because it is their only option. The amount of people on and cost of food stamps differs in individual states, and this difference can be observed in the chart above.  





My Schools Food Drive

As parliamentarian of my schools National Honor Society I work with the other E-Board members to coordinate the years NHS run events. The past two weeks, we have been running a food drive. All the food collected goes to families in the school district, so its nice to know we are helping the community. Even though my school is in a nice area with mostly middle-class families, there are still people who struggle. To protect the confidentiality of students, only administration knows where the food is going.

Once we have collected all the food, we will sort the food into groups such as vegetables, fruit, soup, etc.. then make boxes with equal amounts of food from each category, for each of the families. A food drive of this size requires a lot of help from the entire NHS, but everyone is willing to help.

I encourage you to start a food drive in your school or community. You'd be surprised how many people around you actually struggle to get food everyday. It's a great feeling knowing I'm helping families in my community.

Inspiration