Take the Hunger Challenge!
Can you feed yourself for only $7 a day for five days? This is the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual.
United Way of King County’s Hunger Challenge is an exercise of empathy—to live in someone else’s shoes for one week and learn how you can help fight hunger in our community. You can choose to do the challenge with your partner or family.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, KOMO radio host Brian Calvert and the following food bloggers are already signed up to take the Hunger Challenge. Please sign up now to join them!
- Big City Hippie
- A Conscious Feast
- Kathleen Flinn
- Eric Rivera’s Cooking Blog
- Family Friendly Food
- Foodista
- Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef
- Mirch Masala
- Savory Sweet Life
UPDATE: Since this post, more food bloggers have signed on to participate! You can see the full list here on our blogroll.
The food bloggers who participated in last year’s Hunger Challenge came up with many delicious, low-cost recipes, and I can’t wait to see what is whipped up this time.
Everyone who completes the Hunger Challenge will be eligible to receive a free ticket to Disneyland! Just go to the “Give a Day, Get a Disney Day” site to register. Under “Search for an activity,” type in your zip code and choose “Hunger & Homelessness” for your volunteer opportunity interest area.
Fill out the form below to sign up for the Hunger Challenge!
hunger challenges are pretty neat. some local people did that in the bay area as well except it was $4 a day! http://www.uwba.org/news/2009/10/living-on-4-a-day/
Hey Olu,
That’s awesome! We think things like this really help bring attention to important causes :D
Excited to be participating in the Hunger Challenge Again this year. I just posted my first entry on how I plan on doing the challenge differently this time around.
http://savorysweetlife.com/2010/01/united-way-king-county-hunger-action-week/
Looking forward in following everyone again.
Yesterday I headed to Fred Meyer to do my weekly shopping for the hunger challenge. I like to think of myself as a pretty aware consumer. I didn’t think $35 for the week would be that difficult. So, I added an additional challenge. My workout group is doing a body cleanse for the last 10 days of the month. My challenge is to eat on $35 for the next 5 days while sticking to the healthy clean eating plan.
For breakfast I had 2 eggs (organic eggs were on sale for $2.00 for a dozen), a glass of juice (odwalla was on sale for 8.99–I think this doesn’t count as going over, right, I’ll drink it all week), a cup of coffee with creamer. (This is where it’s starting to get interesting–I have a keurig, keurig cups are $7.99 for 12 cups; out of my budget so I bought Folgers and made old-fashioned coffee) plus creamer (2.99, but I had a coupon for $1.50 off). The coffee tasted pretty good (don’t tell our friends at Sbux) but it took a lot longer to prep than my Keurig.
I had a smoothie for lunch. Banana (1.99 for 6), milk (oops didn’t factor this in as we have milk delivered since my 2 and 3.5 year old drink 8 1/2 gallons a week–hmmm, that’s $24 a week AND that’s important for their brain and bone development–that’s a hard choice for a mom to make, I can see how the dollar menu at McDonald’s looks appealing). Plus a little flax seed oil (not in my budget) and agave (not included in my budget).
Normally, I’d have a latte this afternoon, but clearly I’m over my budget and it’s only 3pm.
For dinner, I’m roasting a chicken (normally I’d buy organic so there is no hormones injected–but it was $10 more than the regular chicken 3.41), so we’re having regular chicken, spinach with lemon juice (.89), olive oil (4.99 on sale–not the fancy kind) and cranberries (4.99) and walnuts (2.99)–normally I’d have pine nuts from Costco, but that’s 10.99.
So, Day 1 I’ve been unsuccessful at feeding myself on $7. I think I’ll do a bit better tomorrow as I’ll eat mostly leftovers. This is harder than I thought. My consciousness is way up and my empathy for the choices many moms have to make every day is even higher. I’m making a gift now to UWKC Hunger Challenge now.
I actually live on approximately $3 a day every day of the year. I used to live on $2 until inflation hit the grocery stores last year. I run a coupon drive, utilize coupons, and give the rest to low income housing groups. I buy weekly only on big sales and often with coupons. This week I made up a large batch of fried rice with vegetables, almonds and eggs which at most costs $.35 cents a serving. Today I just made up curry lentil soup which will cost about $.20 a bowl for four servings. I purchased 5 grapefruit for $1 and dozen eggs for $1 which will be mainstay breakfast during the week. (+discounted sourdough bread for toast $1.99)I also purchased 4 large boxes cheerios for $1.25 each which will last over a month. Head lettuce, organic carrots, olives, ranch dressing and topper starbucks pint of java ice cream will round out the week. ( starbucks java icecream $2.50 plus $1 off coupon $1.50)
I kicked off the hunger challenge yesterday with my absolute favorite soup, Taco Soup in the crockpot. It’s only 70 cents a serving and will feed us for a few meals this week.
http://dianasaurdishes.com/01/taco-soup-for-the-crockpot-and-food-stamps/
[...] awesome bloggers, we got tons of different commenters sharing their thoughts and meals (read them here and here). Of note, Seattle Works CEO Alison Carl White commented about her first day taking the [...]
[...] week, over 250 community members are participating in the United Way of King County Hunger Challenge. We have been lucky enough to hear from some participants about how their first day went and some [...]
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United Way of King County mobilizes our community in ways that no single agency, individual, or government can to enhance the ability of people to care for one another.
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