An Interview with an Anonymous Student Storyteller.
On December 2nd, 2022, an interview was conducted with a West Virginia University student to hear their experience with hunger here in the state of West Virginia. Their earliest memory of poverty and subsequent food assistance came during the 2008 recession, where they received food from their school: “You know those little baggies you get sent home with from school? I got sent home with those, and then over breaks it would be, like, a box.” For the interviewee, the 2008 financial crisis hit their family hard, so much so that at a certain point they were unable to stay at home with their family: “I had to stay with a family member, for a little bit, because of how bad it had gotten. My parents just couldn’t really provide for me. It wasn't too long, about six months.” Lack of funding took them from their home, and even though it was just for a short period of time, the time away from family due to lack of money was incredibly disheartening.
““It got bad again in 2020, both my parents had no job, my dad because of COVID, my mom because of a health issue. There was no income. Luckily I was in high school, so we got the food stamp cards, the SNAP benefit card… [which] not only benefited me, but my entire family.””
Things stabilized after a time for their family, and during that time, there would always be food in the house. However, this was not always the best food, according to the interviewee. “There was food in the house. It wasn’t always the best food for you, but there was food. I was fed… a lot of preserved foods.” The quality of such foods had an impact upon the interviewee, and they felt that more could be done to help families like theirs feed children higher quality foods. “[Right to food is] rights to healthy food. It is access to good, fresh produce and good meats. That’s not the case in some of these poor, small towns that only have, like, a Dollar General. The right to food is access to good food, not just food. Good food.”
But again, life was changed during the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic: “It got bad again in 2020, both my parents had no job, my dad because of COVID, my mom because of a health issue. There was no income. Luckily I was in high school, so we got the food stamp cards, the SNAP benefit card… [which] not only benefited me, but my entire family.” These bad things seem to happen, but they go away in a couple months, according to the interviewee. But the fact that they keep on reoccurring, over and over again, forces families and people to make impossible decisions between food and paying rent or medications.
As a college student, the interviewee admitted to facing struggles with affording food now being on their own: “There was a point this past summer where I lived in Morgantown alone, for summer school, so six weeks. It was really bad for me personally because I had my job in Wheeling, but I was living in Morgantown…I was only working on the weekends, so it was tough to make rent and buy food at the same time. I eventually told my parents and they were able to help me. There was a point in time… I drive a truck. Over the summer it was costing me $70 to fill it up, so going back and forth from Morgantown to Wheeling was pretty rough. So this one time, I had $80 in my bank account. No cash, no nothing. So I thought, ‘I can either go home, to go work and make more money. Or, I can buy food for the next couple days.’ Of course, you don’t really have a choice, the choice is obvious. You have to go to work.”
We have seen how stories like those above persist over time. The systems currently in place are just not working. This is why there is a call for the codified right to food, on any level, so communities can finally feel relief: “I think so many would benefit from that [a right to food ordinance]. I would’ve.” Real struggles will be ameliorated with such actions.