Food stamp fiasco

[Mama Mia]

No offense doggie, but freedomoutpost post is not by any stretch of the imagination a credible news source. An Annonymous letter from a Walmart employee saying her hours were cut following this incident, and this must be the reason why, is even less credible.

[flyawaystray]

Is there really no way to backtrack? The computer doesn't store the card number when you swipe it? If it did, it would be very easy to see who the card belongs to and then hand the case over to the proper people and either terminate benefits, or make the person for what they took. So if someone had $200 in benefits and spent $500, they should have to pay the difference of $300.

[Mama Mia]

Is there really no way to backtrack? The computer doesn't store the card number when you swipe it? If it did, it would be very easy to see who the card belongs to and then hand the case over to the proper people and either terminate benefits, or make the person for what they took. So if someone had $200 in benefits and spent $500, they should have to pay the difference of $300.

There should be, but since the whole problem was caused by a massive computer system error, the purchases made during that time period might not be trackable.

[flyawaystray]

Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that. It sucks people are getting away from what is essentially theft, even if Walmart said it was ok to lift the $50 limit. That's why I think it is both Walmart's fault and the customers who took advantage of the computer glitch.

[Stephanie66]

Yeah, that's true. I didn't think about that. It sucks people are getting away from what is essentially theft, even if Walmart said it was ok to lift the $50 limit. That's why I think it is both Walmart's fault and the customers who took advantage of the computer glitch.

This. People have a rough idea of how much they have in their accounts. If it was a few bucks over, okay. A few hundred? They stole from Walmart.

[Flossie]

We [food pantry] did get some good fresh stuff from farmers in the region, but often our clients didn't know what to do with fresh vegetables and it wasn't uncommon for clients to lack kitchen facilities entirely.

BUT...if people could learn how easy cooking fresh vegetables can be, they might like it.

My daughter was going to do her senior project by planting a garden, maintaining it through the summer, and donating the food to the local food bank. We began preparing the ground the previous fall, lined up a master gardener for her mentor, and interviewed several workers at the local food bank. One of the troubling things they said was that a lot of fresh produce was thrown away by the recipients. We were concerned that my daughter's hard work might be for nothing, so we set up a display at the food bank where people could answer a short questionaire and get half a dozen cookies for doing so. Basically we listed all of the vegetables that were under consideration for the garden and asked them to check the ones they would like.

Then we asked why they didn't want the vegetables that went unchecked. Two themes arose: the people mostly said that they didn't like some of them, and didn't know what the rest were or how to prepare them.

We asked what they would change about the food bank if they could. It turned out a large majority of the people resented having their food package prepared for them by the staff. If someone walked in to ask for food, the staff would decide what and how much stuff to give them.

We began gathering some recipes highlighting various vegetables and considering partnering with one of the students who was going into culinary school to make some dishes that people could sample. We thought we'd have a little demo a few times over the summer in the parking lot of the food bank. My daughter would deliver her veggies and stay around to help prepare some dishes. We were really getting into the whole thing, putting together lists of people who could donate gas stoves, who we could hit up to borrow some big bowls, pots, pans, etc. A lady from the County Extension office said she'd try to put together a tutorial on how to prepare some things for freezing and would provide information on canning classes offered at the Extension.

Then the school withdrew permission to allow this to become my daughters senior project because she wasn't going into farming or social services as a career. My daughter was going to grow the garden anyway, but her father kept putting off rototilling the ground and getting the sprinklers, seeds, and stuff because his daughter wasn't going to get to use the garden for her s.p. The other student then changed his project to working on a cookbook for the County Extension office featuring healthy recipes that would be easy to prepare.