[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 146 (2000), Part 7]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 10279-10280]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



                            APPALACHIA TOUR

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. TONY P. HALL

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                         Thursday, June 8, 2000

  Mr. HALL of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, I rise to share another story from my 
recent tour of Appalachia. I heard many stories of people who are 
hungry in the midst of our record-breaking economy. I wish that I 
didn't hear these stories and I wish they weren't true, but they are. 
One family told me of their trouble simply putting meals on the table.
  Darryl and Martha are two ordinary people who find themselves 
requiring assistance from a local food pantry. Darryl just turned 70 
and receives about $ 1,000 each month for his retirement. Martha has 
cancer and lost her parents and her brothers to the disease. She had 
surgery eight times in the past 10 years. In order to get to her 
medical appointments, Darryl and Martha must drive eighty miles round-
trip. Even with Medicaid, their gas and $10 co-payments add up, so they 
swallowed their pride and applied for food stamps. After filling out an 
application that asked 700 questions, Darryl and Martha were 
congratulated on being entitled to $5 each in monthly benefits.
  When an outreach worker spoke with Darryl and Martha, neither of them 
had eaten for three days. Three days. There was not a single can or box 
of food in their cupboards, after months of trying to stretch 
everything they had. Martha had watered down a can of tomato juice to 
last two weeks. She had added

[[Page 10280]]

extra water to cans of soup to try and make it last a second day. They 
once had chicken noodle soup with no chicken and noodles made from one 
egg and a little flour. Martha would often lie to her husband and say 
that she wasn't hungry so that he could eat. ``We never asked for 
help,'' they said, until the doctor gave her two days to live if she 
did not start eating again. The food pantry helped them with a few bags 
of groceries, and for now, they say, ``we don't have to add water to 
everything because we can eat again.''
  Mr. Speaker, people should rejoice for the big things in life, not 
just because they can eat a whole can of soup. We need to end the 
scourge of hunger in America. We have the solutions, all we need is the 
political and spiritual will to do it.

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