Associate vice president of Student Academic Support Services Peter Konwerski describes living on a food stamp budget for a week.

For the past 15 years, I have taught a course, titled Empowerment for Social Change, in the GW Human Services Program. This year, as students planning Hunger Week worked to apply Saul Alinsky’s practical primer, Rules for Radicals, to their campus and community organizing, they encouraged me to take the Food Stamp Challenge. The concept sounded simple enough: eat for a week on a budget of $28.75, the rate set for an individual on food stamps.