THE DAY I get food stamps is like Christmas - it turns grocery shopping into the high point of my month.
First I go through the Sunday paper to cut out all the coupons. Then I talk a friend into driving me to the least expensive Safeway in the city. Because it's far away and because I can't always get a ride, I buy my groceries for the whole month at one time.
Mostly I just buy what's on sale, making sure to get necessities like potatoes, rice, bread and pasta. That way I know I'll never starve. Next come fruits and vegetables - whatever's cheap and will last as far into the month as possible without going bad.
At that point I usually don't have much left but if I do, I buy something special - peanut butter, milk, bagels, tomato sauce. Meat is too expensive and prepared or packaged food is out of the question.
Putting the food away is almost like a party, with my friends helping and everybody in a good mood. We ration the food out, freezing half the bread and butter, dividing the packages into small piles to last through the month.
The downside of all this are "the looks" I get on the checkout line - you know, the ones that say "You're an able-bodied young woman. Why don't you get a job and pay for your food like everyone else?" Those looks make me feel ashamed despite myself.
Like most food stamp recipients I'm white and I'm female. I'm also 18, on my own and going to college to make sure I don't spend my life depending on government aid.
What I want to know is why working 40 hours a week at three different jobs - at slightly above the minimum wage - still doesn't allow me to feed myself. Whoever says we're coming out of the recession must be living under a rock!
Getting $115 in food stamps, in fact, allows me to do a lot more than just eat. Almost 90 percent of what I take home from my jobs each month - about $540 - goes for rent, phone and utilities. I'm not even counting non-food items like toothpaste and laundry, or the occasional emergency (like needing a new pair of shoes because it's been raining for 27 days straight). If the last 10 percent went for food, there'd be nothing left for school. I'd be like a rat in a maze with no way out.
Last month when I enrolled in school my food stamps were cut off. They have to decide whether I meet new student eligibility rules and that may take another two months. When the social worker told me, all I could ask was: "What do you want me to do? Choose between school and eating?"
In fact, I've started dumpster diving again, something I used to do when I was homeless. That's when you go to trash cans behind a restaurant or supermarket and pick out food you can eat.
Supermarkets are the best - they throw away cans that are dented or missing a label, or packaged food that's been opened, or stale bread. When I get stale bread I wrap it in a damp towel and stick it in the oven and it's as good as new.
Right now I can tell you I dream about food, think about it during class, obsess about it when I'm at work or just walking along the street. It's unbelievable to me that when there's so much food around, I can't afford to buy it.
Politicians who want to cut food stamps rarely talk about young people like me. They want the public to think we're all lazy, we're all having kids to get more benefits (as if raising kids wasn't the hardest work there is). But to me food isn't something extravagant. It's a basic necessity - like air and water. In a country as rich as ours, it should be a basic human right.
Lyn Duff is on the staff of YO! (Youth Outlook), a newspaper by and about Bay Area teens produced by Pacific News Service.<

http://www.sfgate.com/style/article/Food-stamps-are-my-ticket-to-school-3150290.php