Food Stamp Cuts Affect Athens

 

 

“Aint no telling what I gotta. You know. I’m gonna have to go to other churches and everywhere else to make ends meet” says food stamp recipient Brenda Sims.

Sims is a mother of two. She receives disability benefits as well as food stamps. Like many families on the program, Brenda can’t afford the cuts being made to the program.

“They already done cut them all the way down and now they finna cut em down again. That’s too much” says sims

For her family of three, she will receive a twenty-nine dollar cut. Bringing her benefits to $497. According to the center of Budget and Policy, this is equivalent to 21 meals per month.

“I’m already going to food banks. Me and my daughters. And then I’m on this thing from the Board of Education they help me too. They send the food to the school and the girls bring the food home.” says Sims

Solomon Smuthers of the Northeast Georgia Food bank says the cut could increase the amount of food needed at the bank.

“We could really see some drastic things happening” says Smuthers

But he says they are prepared

“We’ll do a couple of food drives this month and in this season that we’ll actually have so much stuff that we won’t be able to put it all out at one time”

Regardless, Brenda Sims is still worried

“Food stamps does help. It really does. And for them to be taking it out and start cutting it. IT might hurt us. It might hurt us a lot”.

 

 

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