Eating on $30 A Week: A Non-Profit Leader's Dose of Reality

Normally, Barbara Levin wouldn’t think twice about joining her co-workers to purchase lunch.

Not this week.

Beginning on Monday, the client services director at Meals on Wheels of Central Maryland, joined 160 students, legislators and state leaders in pledging to use $30—the average weekly Maryland food stamp benefit—to pay for her food costs through Sunday.

“I am realizing that I am very, very fortunate,” said Levin, a Middle-River resident and Philadelphia native. “The ability to go to the market and buy what I want, when I want, is a huge deal."

Through the weeklong Food Stamp Challenge, Levin is hoping to gain a better understanding of what her clients go through on a daily basis, while helping to raise awareness about the daily strain many Marylanders face in counting every penny at the grocery store to avoid hunger.

More than 680,000 people in Maryland receive Food Supplement Program benefits, a number that has increased 17 percent since last year.

Making inexpensive choices at the supermarket and effectively rationing food has been taxing, said Levin. She said she is experiencing the physical effects of regularly eating less, including hunger and feeling less sharp at work.

"Normally I’d be annoyed at myself" about burning food while cooking, said Levin. "Now, it’s a tragedy if it happens.”

Eliminated from her diet are the high-protein meats and fresh fruits and vegetables that she would normally consume.

Restaurant-prepared meals? Forget it.

Instead, Levin has relied on a cereal-based breakfast to start each morning, and lunch has featured a lot of canned tuna.

While her fellow board members forked over $8 for a takeout lunch, Levin—knowing she wouldn’t be able to afford it—brought a small mixture of tuna and macaroni with a side of sliced apples.  

For dinner, she got a little fancier with her own adaptation of pasta fagioli. But in lieu of the prosciutto ham and cannellini beans was a small portion of hamburger meat and kidney beans along with pasta, celery and carrots.  

She bought all of her food at a discount grocery.

“She’s got to eat within that $30 a week when most of us are used to five, ten dollars sometimes for lunch," said Meals on Wheels grants manager Toni Gianforte. "We are all talking about items ... that are the high-carb, sugary products. They’ll get your motor running, but it’s unhealthy.”

Gianforte said Levin is helping to bring to life the hardships of what many, including a large proportion of senior citizens, deal with daily.

“The whole issue of senior hunger isn’t swept under the rug, but it’s not visible. You have soup kitchens and groups like the Maryland Food Bank, but our clients are essentially hidden from public view," said Gianforte.

“I really hope that we are raising awareness and reforming public policy,” Levin said. “When I have to turn somebody down because there aren’t enough slots here, they panic. We have people who are crying on the phone. I may not be able to fix it, but I should at least be able to understand.”