To the editor:
Now would be a good time for Berkshire County towns to provide a backstop for their most vulnerable residents, those who are on SNAP and WIC food benefit programs.
In Stockbridge, for example, we have somewhere between 40 and 70 individuals on SNAP and no more than 10 on WIC. A simple benefit of $200 each for the month of November would obviate the need for folks in my community to go hungry. With $200, you can buy enough milk, eggs, and cheese for someone to make it through this ridiculous government shutdown. Just stay away from packaged foods and the money could easily stretch 30 days in a pinch.
Those folks in Stockbridge, by the way, are mostly seniors and a handful of single moms and their children.
Any Berkshire town could quickly pass such an initiative. Town governments have reserve funds and emergency funding options, usually around one percent of their budget. This initiative, for the month of November, would cost less than 0.1 percent of Stockbridge’s annual budget, with which I am most familiar.
That translates into about $4 on my annual tax bill. I don’t know a single taxpayer, Republican or Democrat, who would oppose spending a couple of bucks each to provide a backstop to ensure our poor elderly and single moms are fed in the month that includes the Thanksgiving holiday. Worried about funding it? Add a gift account and solicit donations. Any town select board can initiate a gift fund for just about any purpose with a simple majority vote.
We have all seen the massive turnout for the marches. I think marches are great, regardless of what you are marching for. It is an exercise in your First Amendment rights. You may be less familiar with the Ninth Amendment: namely that folks have rights even if they are not specifically listed in the Constitution. Personally, I believe seniors and single moms have the right to not be hungry. Perhaps we should do more than march.
It takes just one member of your town’s finance committee and one member of your town’s select board to reach out to your chair and get a reserve fund transfer on your agenda. Call for an emergency meeting. It takes just one phone call to any of the amazing food security organizations in the Berkshires to set up a program to avoid the anti-aid amendment issue. To the “we can’t do that” crowd, to the “government can’t be nimble” crowd, I say: Yes, you can, and yes, you can be. It just takes resolve.
If you have any questions on the mechanics of how this would work, I have some experience in the functioning of town government, and I would be happy to walk you through it. My number is easy to find on the internet.
It is time to put our values to practical use. All it takes is the resolve to recognize that our governments should reflect our values and a little thinking outside the box. With just a few hours of work, we can feed our hungry during this shutdown.
How about we do that?
Patrick White
Stockbridge
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