Free food...kinda

For those without the means, there are programs in place to eliminate a national food insecurity. However, these programs are strictly monitored to help people in need that did not create their economic struggle. Thankfully the government is not fond of giving people money that don't strive to work to escape food insecurity because it would raise tax prices for everyone. There are primarily three programs that aid in eliminating food insecurity:

• SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) - Those that fulfill the requirements are given an EBT card to use like a credit card. The card is loaded with a certain dollar amount every month that is only able to be spent of food items. The benefits are primarily for larger families with low income and a high amount of school aged children. 
• WIC (Women, Infants and Children) - Pregnant women and women with children under five are able to receive assistance if needed. Some of the benefits include, receiving information on nutritious diets as well as provide foods that are abundant in vitamins A, D and C, which are vital to infant health. This program also allows mothers access to free doctor visits to make sure their child is healthy. 
• School Lunch Programs - In public schools, parents that make under a certain wage have the option of receiving free or reduced lunch. This makes sure that these kids at least have one nutritious meal a day, in the unfortunate case that they do not have access to healthy food at home

While I think that all of these are viable options to reduce food insecurity on a national scale, there are many "hoops" families have to go through in order to receive benefits. Sometimes the application and acceptance process takes a while, leaving these families hungry for longer. Although the application process to receive assistance is tedious, it is needed so people that are not working to dissolve food insecurity (and are just being lazy) do not take away the benefits from a family in need. 

Governmental funds are limited so we can't feed all of the crooks for free! An alternative would be to have churches provide free meals once a day for people in need. Of course, these crooks could show up at the churches too and eat some of the free food. Perhaps another idea is to have a pre-screening process on the families in need. Their family income could be checked for the past two years and could be compared to the amount of people in the household. Then, the people that pass the pre-screening could receive a small sum of money to feed themselves while their application for SNAP or WIC goes through. 

I think the free and reduced school lunch program is headed in the right direction. But what about all of the kids' other meals. There has to be a way to make sure school aged children get nutritious meals during weekday dinner and on the weekends. A possible solution would be to have "take home" meals for the children on free and reduced lunch. When these students go through the lunch line they would be able to pick up a packed meal to bring home. 

There has to be another option to provide food for those in need, in a timely and cost-efficient manner. Any ideas?

Reference:

Krishna, Meghna. (2014, January 29). What can we do to eliminate food insecurity. (20 April 2014). Retrieved from <http://www.neahin.org/blog/what-can-we-do-to-eliminate.html>