From a poor senior:
Despite years of work, I am a senior who is poor like so many others. While we live in a country that produces more than enough food for everyone, corporate profiteering leaves much of this food out of reach. I often need supplemental food assistance even with SNAP.
TV and papers have praised Hands On New Orleans, a city project which recently began delivering one box every week to seniors not eligible for FEMA meals because we get SNAP.
Now, I’m not picky at all. But I am outraged that 3 weeks in a row our box mainly consisted of 3 pounds of hot dogs with no expiration date or ingredients listed. Hands on Nola excused themselves by saying the mystery dogs are coming from the Dept. of Agriculture which obviously is buying tons of unsellable, unhealthy mystery hot dogs (from one of Trump’s friends?) Sodium, nitrates, food poisoning… Is the plan to kill even more seniors than COVID-19 and poverty already does?
To add insult to injury, the hot dogs came with a letter from criminal Donald Trump, a fan of seniors dying. He writes, “consider wearing a mask”. Consider 280,000 dead, one quarter of them seniors. Keep your friends’ hot dogs, Trump, and we’ll feed them to you in jail where you should be.
But the City and Hands on Nola also have a responsibility to not poison seniors while getting praised for good deeds. We must expand SNAP and raise the amount for seniors, and all people who need food. Then we can buy food with labels and not depend on charity.