As a 10 year employee of United Way of King County, I’ve been lucky to visit many of the agencies that do incredible work in our community. I’ve had the chance to meet and visit with the people who work very hard every day to help as many people as they can. When I think about the food banks I’ve visited, I recall lines of grateful people, thoughtful volunteers bustling about and stacks and stacks of food.

It takes a lot of work to run…

We’ve wrapped up Hunger Action Week, five days dedicated to raising awareness about hunger in our community.

So now what?

It’s time to take action. There are many ways you can get involved, and we’re sure that you can come up some creative ideas too. Here’s what Mary Shaw, one of our staff members at United Way of King County, said she chose to do.

“I thought I could get involved by doing a virtual hunger awareness lunch. OK, I guess I am not

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I’ve gotten many questions from people about the $7 a day allotment for the Hunger Challenge and why a two-person household gets $12 and not $14, etc. etc.

I’m no expert on Washington’s Basic Food Program (what we call food stamps in this state), but Liz Jaquette at the nonprofit WithinReach is. So I gave Liz a call and got a brief, but illuminating, education on food stamps. Here’s what I learned.

$7 a day is the MAXIMUM benefit for a single…

As we come to end of day four, this has been the most interesting Hunger Challenge to date.  It has sparked criticism and debate and made us examine what the Challenge is and what it should be.  While some of the discussion has been difficult, I am heartened that so many people care so passionately about hunger in this country.  It tells me that we can come together and we can sustain this movement to end hunger in our community.

The United Way created…

Note: On day 4 of Hunger Action Week, I received this tweet about the Hunger Challenge: “@UnitedWayKC a bunch of anoretic bloggers eat beans 4 wk & then write how mean poor people are in response. this helps strving families HOW?” I thought for a awhile about how I should respond. Then I wrote, “What is about the Hunger Challenge that makes you angry?” and invited the person to send me an e-mail fully explaining her position. Her name is Marisa Miller and this is…

Hunger Action Week and the Hunger Challenge have certainly captured attention in Seattle and King County.  Hundreds of people are taking the Challenge and sharing their experiences.  There has been push back as well.  There were some tweets about free food being offered at a Panda Express on the east side and a few participants may have partaken of the free fast food.  The Challenge has been called “poverty tourism” and “not like real life”.  Of course it’s not real life.  And this is…

Yes. It is possible to eat for $7 a day (that’s the maximum food stamp benefit for an individual, by the way). But chances are, if you have really, truly followed the rules of the Hunger Challenge you are starting to worry. You worry that you may not have enough food to get you through the next two days.

Note: I saw a tweet from Larissa Long that said, “As a former single mom of low income, I’m a bit offended by #HungerChallenge posts w/ complaints about giving up lattes & organic food.” I responded, and after chatting for a bit, I invited Larissa to share her viewpoint on our blog. Here is her guest post.

I couldn’t pay my bills. I was a single mother of two children, one with a disability. I longed to qualify for food stamps.

That was…

On day 2 of Hunger Action Week, Publicola’s Erica Barnett wrote an opinion piece that called the Hunger Challenge an insensitive and distasteful exercise in “poverty tourism.” She writes:

“There’s something off-putting about watching privileged people play at being poor, and it isn’t just that their complaints amount to whining about five days without $12-a-pound coffee and $9 sandwiches from the Dahlia Lounge. It’s that ‘living on food stamps’ isn’t the same as actually being poor. People in poverty lack many advantages besides the

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KING 5 traffic reporter Tracy Taylor has been participating in the Hunger Challenge, and in her video blog today, she says that she’s getting a lot of flack on Twitter for complaining about not being able to buy coffee and playing at being poor.

“Poverty is a serious thing. It really does happen everywhere,” she says. “It could be your neighbor. It could be your co-worker. It could be maybe your little boy or little girl’s friend who lives down the street.”

“Seven dollars a

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