By Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino
December 17, 2007

I held a press conference October 23 to announce the launch Boston’s 21st annual Boston Can Share Food Drive for the Hungry. Leaders from the hunger advocacy community joined me to address the growing problem of hunger in our city and the increasing pressure on local emergency food pantries. Our message: the challenge Boston residents face to heat their homes or to feed their families. This winter, with home heating oil at $100 a barrel and gas over $3 a gallon, tight household budgets could be stretched to the breaking point.

I issued a challenge for community leaders to join me in “The Mayor’s Hunger Shopping Challenge.” Each person shops on a food budget of $21 dollars to feed their families for a week. The $21 represents the average weekly benefit a food stamp recipient in Boston.

As Congress votes soon on the Farm Bill, greater attention must be paid to benefit levels of the Food Stamp program. The minimum monthly benefit level of ten dollars has not been increased since 1977. Meanwhile, the cost of a healthy diet increases as the price of everything from a gallon of milk to a head of lettuce goes up and up.

The food stamp program should also be at the center of a larger national wellness strategy that promotes ending hunger with healthy eating. The locally grown produce necessary for a healthy diet should be available for all Americans. Fruit and vegetable production in small farm states like Massachusetts, innovative community food programs and access to fresh fruits and vegetables in our schools should receive greater funding in the Farm Bill.

Shopping on $21 dollars a week you make trade-offs between nutrition and price points, between quality and quantity. I purchased powdered milk instead of fresh milk, and chose an eight-pack of chicken thighs over chicken breasts. When each of us looked down into our shopping carts at the check out, they were closer to empty than full. That’s what hunger looks like when you can’t make ends meet.

So what did we purchase on our $21 dollar budget? An eight-pack of chicken thighs, some powdered milk, a four-pound bag of rice, a few pieces of fruit, and some fresh vegetables. At the last minute, we decided to get a loaf of bread. I suggested whole wheat or wholegrain bread, in the hope that we might be able to pick up a jar of peanut butter or a can of tuna fish at a local food pantry to stretch our food into the following week.

Final Cost: $22.53. That loaf of wheat bread at $2.59 put us over budget.

Hunger is a growing issue in high housing cost communities across the United States, and yet too often it remains a hidden problem. Here in Boston, I have tried to make the problem more vivid and the issue of hunger more real to the average citizen. Now Congress must do its part.