While I sit here and twitch at the thought of having to wait to access my course syllabus for my paralegal classes that this community had so wonderfully helped me pay a down payment on, I would like to rewind to 2009 for a bit.
2009 was an awful year. One of the worse in my life. I slogged through abuse, horrible relationships, injuries and even poverty before that year. Yet 2009 was the worse of it because it did not just affect me but my children as well. The end of 2008 had seen us go through my husband's 96 % blockage in his heart, and job loss. We were broke but we believed that we could make it and even get ahead. With great reservation, basically kicking and screaming, we moved into my insane parent's basement to save money and pay down bills. Stuck in what I call hell, we found no jobs there. We were stuck. My mother went over the edge one day over her need to watch Glenn Beck. The blow up found us homeless. A friend helped us get a hooker hotel until we got paid so we could move back up to KC. I actually heard my son cry in hunger, we had no money to feed ourselves other than cheap noodles for us and used the microwave for my kids a tv dinner. Peanut butter and jelly for the kids at lunch, nothing for us, and a free doughnut for us all for breakfast. My husband and I needed to lose weight, so no skin off our nose, yet the sugar we were living off of through me over the edge and a full blown diabetic.
We finally made it back to KC with enough money from my husband's final severance check to put a deposit on our apartment. We had 60 dollars in our pocket for food. I started my old get out the house part time job back up. So a pay check was on its way a few weeks later. I applied for emergency food stamps but they were denied because of the past check. My husband applied for unemployment. The unemployment was delayed due to the need for a review. My husband had qualified for WIA and the customer service person at Unemployment put that he was in college. As we know in Kansas you can't go to college and get unemployment without major hassle. We scraped by on food banks etc.
Finally we straightened out unemployment but I had lost my job. Money was tight again. My unemployment was delayed 3 1/2 months until my hearing. School had come around and my daughter started kindergarten. 100 dollar book fees hung over our heads, lunches were 2.10 a day, full day cost a little less than 300 dollars a month at the time. I applied for free lunch. Thank the Lord we qualified. I knew that she would not go hungry and would eat a semi healthy lunch instead of the cheap crap we were eating to get by. I reapplied for food stamps and got them in September. My review occurred in Oct. while I was in the hospital they held my benefits until the end of Dec 09 due the hospitalization not allowing me to be available for work.
By January we lost our food stamps because of my unemployment kicked in which put us over the limit by 20 dollars a month. Like that 20 dollars bought enough food. But we slogged, they reviewed our free lunch every 2 months since unemployment was considered temporary and they wanted to make sure we weren't making money. My daughter kept her free lunch until Dec. 2010. This is where my husband got a job and was able to go up to reduced lunch. That was still a blessing. She was still guaranteed food everyday.
While we only went hungry for a short time, we were still food insecure for the longest. Now today I read where the state of Arizona wants schools to be able to opt out of the free lunch program because serving healthier foods cost .06 more per meal and child. So my children aren't worth the .06 to insure that they don't go hungry. I know McDonald's coffee costs about a dollar for the cheap stuff. I don't know how much the fancy stuff is, I have never been much of a coffee drinker, but I guess that daily dollar coffee is more important than the .06 that would feed a hungry child.
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