“Mom, is this program for poor people? Are we poor?”
Winter doesn’t want to lie to her son about the free summer meals he eats, but she also doesn’t want him to know how hard it can be to provide for four kids. She lives on tribal lands, in the Blackfeet Nation in northern Montana. It’s a place where many families struggle. Jobs are limited and often seasonal. Winter’s husband works in construction, and it can be especially hard for the family during the long, harsh Montana winter.
“No, it’s not,” she told him. “It’s just for you guys, so anybody has a meal to eat in the summertime.”
Winter does what she can to stretch her food budget. They rarely eat out, and her children eat free breakfast and lunch at school or summer meals at a community center. Sometimes she shops at Walmart; it’s more affordable than the local grocery stores and makes her SNAP dollars last a little longer. But the Blackfeet Nation is isolated. The nearest Walmart is in Great Falls — a two-and-a-half-hour drive one way.
Winter and her husband make sacrifices to protect their children and get them what they need. Sometimes that means a trip to the pawnshop.
“If we have to go hawk something like, say, his gun or my laptop, I’ll do it without hesitation, you know, because, we’ll get it out. If we really, really need something. When my daughter needed volleyball shoes, I hawked my laptop and I got them for her, and I got it out.”
Life on the reservation is hard, and there are new challenges at every turn. But when Winter looks at her children, she doesn’t feel despair. She feels joy. They’re happy, they’re all doing well in school, and their futures are bright. Part of that comes from the food they get from the programs that No Kid Hungry supports, like school breakfast and summer meals.
“I want them to be doctors. I want them to be lawyers, you know, and if that’s possible, then I’m gonna help them as, you know, as hard as I can."
"You know, I’ll sacrifice. I’ll work double jobs if I have, to pay for them to go to school. I just want them to have a good life. I want them not to have to rely on, you know, SNAP benefits or Medicaid. I want them to be able to provide for their families without worrying, you know, about — I want them to have good-paying jobs. That’s what I want them to have.”
