and Pandemic EBT

First a moment with one of RantWoman's annoying traits, wanting to add something to perfectly fine work by others, let's talk SNAP and #PandemicEBT  First the part where RantWoman riffs on newsletter matters and wants to add something to what is already an excellent event. 

Report: SNAP Information Event

Ellie Duffield

Peace and Social Concerns hosted an advocacy session for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps) last month. It was sparsely attended, but the people who came were enthusiastic about sharing their stories and writing letters to members of Congress to support SNAP. If you are interested in writing a letter or email, it is not too late! Ask your representative to increase the SNAP budget by 15% in order to meet growing needs. Some points you could include are:

• All but four states reported increases in people requesting SNAP benefits over the summer. In March there were 37.1 million people using SNAP and by April that number went up to 43 million. Black, Latinx, and Indigenous households are suffering an unequal financial burden in response to the pandemic.

• In Washington state, more than half the households participating in SNAP are families with children. Kids do better in school when they are able to get enough to eat.

• SNAP is the most effective anti-hunger program in the United States and helps one in eight Americans afford a basic diet.

• Nine out of every ten meals that feed the hungry come from federal nutrition programs.

• If you have experienced food insecurity or benefited from any government program, please include that in your letter. Sharing a personal story is one of the most effective ways to advocate for an issue.

Writing letters and emails is important even when we think our representatives agree with us and support an issue. They can use our letters to demonstrate to colleagues that their constituents are demanding action. Washington’s senators are 

Patty Murray Patty Murray electronic contact form

and 

Maria Cantwell Maria Cantwell electronic contact form 

SNAP and Pandemic EBT RantWoman unsolicited donation of an additional messages.

One of the fights about SNAP budget was also a debate about whether to give people boxes of food chosen by someone else through the Department of Agriculture, or to give people SNAP benefits they can spend on food of their choice. The latter is unquestionably a better value for food insecure. RantWoman would love to have had the energy to check out whether some Trump campaign contributor got a big contract to develop and distribute the former. RantWoman also lives in an area where some of these boxes of food are getting dropped. The boxes run very heavy to starches, cereal, big brands that people from some cultures just don't eat, a tiny amount of dried fruit, sometimes protein, and fresh things such as potatoes and onions. Giving people direct benefits so they can choose their own groceries is far preferable!

The first round of the CARES funding also included a benefit called #PandemicEBT. Since most children who qualify for Free and Reduced Price Lunches were not in school to receive the breakfast or lunch provided by that program, families could apply to have money that would have gone to school lunch put on their SNAP benefit card instead. The program has now ended and it probably would be difficult to add extension of that program to whatever legislation is being worked on. Nevertheless, it was a very valuable program even though by far not everyone eligible was able to access it. So RantWoman would say, if you can work mention of extending Pandemic EBT into comments about the SNAP program, it is worth doing even if it might not go anywhere this time.

RantWoman actually would qualify for a small dollar amount of SNAP benefits. The dollar amount per month is so small, RantWoman does not really consider it worth her time to apply--EXCEPT that in Seattle the ridiculously paternalistic sugary beverage tax funds a benefit that gives SNAP recipients money to spend at farmers' markets, assuming the farmer's markets are operating, one can get to them on their schedule, and one has time these days to wait in socially distanced lines. Waiting in line is not a RantWoman strong suit. Plus RantWoman finds it easy to get more vegetables than she can eat anyway.

Even More Unsolicited Contributions of Technical Assistance.

This post is part of this year's observance of National Disabilities Employment Awareness Month, #NDEAM #NDEAM2020

RantWoman is very clear in a call to donate considerable time to what the term of art calls "technical assistance" about a number of topics. What is the nature of this call?

--RantWoman has been told her time is worth not quite as much as lawyers and top level accountants but considerably more than minimum wage. 

--Welcome to reasonable accommodations! RantWoman needs the same accommodations whether she is at work, at Meeting, volunteering elsewhere. RantWoman also needs the same coping skills when accommodations are, sometimes comically imperfect. And SOMETIMES one practices all of this outside a workplace in order to polish them up for application in a workplace. Or one can wind up like RantWoman curerently with too many "will work for sandwiches" gigs and a few usability tests complete with  "please fill out our survey and be entered into a lottery for small compensation.." bits.

--RantWoman has a role outside of Meeting that she cannot fill with integrity without continuing to try aroun meeting.

--University Friends Meeting has too big a footprint in the Religious Society of Friends to fall apart over one Friend's midlife vision loss. RantWoman has a peculiar gift about bad communications causing much needed shakeups to occur. RantWoman would be grateful to be able to fine-tune the gift by quite a bit, even today's kinder gentler version of the RantWoman of previous eras. RantWoman has to continue to give the problem to God.

--UFM is the only meeting RantWoman has ever belonged to and therefore, it is to RantWoman, her Meeting no matter how many Friends jump down her throat or gaslight her in email about specific issues of physical abuse or gaps in shared awareness of important facts.

--They're HERE! RantWoman aspires to be at least a plausible adult role model and hopefully to make some pockets of the world a little less ableist for upcoming generations. RantWoman talks to a fair number of women her age about vision loss. According to the American Foundation For the Blind, there is a big uptick around age 40 for women qualifying for Social Security disability specifically because of vision loss. RantWoman has no opinion about why that is except it covers lots of working age people and the world of vocational rehabilitation. Finally, lots of people are aging into blindness and other disability. Think how much Friends have to learn and build community about.

--Diversity and Inclusion is a big term in the corporate world. Think of it as a secularized version of "that of God in Everyone." Or think of it as inclusive design is better for everyone. Or think of it as bigger, better, stronger thant the ADA because the ADA sometimes winds up being a ceiling rather than a minimum and because many efforts can wind up compliant with the ADA and not accessible and because there are areas where the ADA does not apply but for instance in WA religious organizations are considered public accommodations subject to the same anti-discrimination provisions of the WA state anti-discrimination statute as other organizations. There is an additional "and furthermore.." that gets a separate post.

RantWoman is aware that past donations of disability related technical assistance have been imperfect in a number of respects. Even RantWoman can go Owwww about some olde emails However, RantWoman hopes that Friends, particularly committee cle rks who in the past have asked to be deleted from relevant mailing lists or who have walked out of the room when disability comes up in conversation, or have their own busy lives full of hair appointments, classes, projects.. or who still get all sputtery will somehow find it within themselves to try again! Likewise recording clerks who, in RantWoman's observation have been flummoxed by many things they deserve to get better words about. RantWoman particularly holds in the Light some past communications wrinkles related to the space-time continuum which RantWoman is likely to need to revisit but not tonight.

 This post celebrates the exciting role, at least for RantWoman, of volunteer and non-profit advocacy in Vocational Rehabilitation, as in learning to use new tools, leveraging life experience, and landing somewhere that might or might not be entirely on her feet but could be a whole lot worse.

Tonight RantWoman is also drafting thank you comments to be recorded in advance in recognition of RantWoman's presence in a different organization. One of the things RantWoman has written: "I don'w know anything. I just go to meetings and cross pollinate.

In particular RantWoman needs to mention:

--Learning to ask for reasonable accommodations, being able to be precise about what is needed, and having the request WORK. In this case, RantWoman has over time intermittently asked a succession of newsletter editors just to put headings in the newsletter. Even for a short document, headings make it much easier for RantWoman to re-read articles one at a time without having to scream her screen reader through the whole document. RantWoman sent an inquiry recently because the headings have been doing weird things for awhile. This month they work!

--Learning when to ask for reasonable accommodations such as having PowerPoints or presentation handouts emailed in advance of meetings, all kinds of meetings, public meetings, Adult Religious Education, special workshops. RantWoman would say based on years of observation, that awareness of concepts such as alternate formats is uneven, and Friends inclination, willingness or ability to learn, RantWoman is not speculating is distributed decidely unevenly. RantWoman is NOT called to go away. Not only that, RantWoman thinks learning about reasonable accommodations and alternate formats is of such value to working age Friends that RantWoman is happy to continue to donate technical assistance about the topic, whether such assistance is welcome or not!

RantWoman gets that this level of resoluteness might look like a darned peculiar way to express care  gratitude. Cope!

In Light and Faithfulness.

RantWoman