What we are eating on $2 Dollar Day

I have loved seeing the conversations about $2 Day.  People are struggling through menu choices and trying to find out the best way to feed up to families of 8 on $2 on Thursday, December 8th.   I love the way people are really trying to enter the lives of the poor on a certain level for one day, in order to grow in empathy.

Let’s face it, for $2 one could buy a grande Starbucks Coffee, a McDonald’s sandwich (maybe?), 1/4 of a Panera sandwich, a 2 liter bottle of Coke, a bag of Doritos,  or a small bag of chips and a soda…OR you could try to feed your whole family off of that amount.  For us, it will be a one day experiment, but for Billions (3.5 Billion to make it a bit more exact) it is daily existence to not only feed their family, but to supply all of their shelter and food needs on  $2 or less per day.

We’ve been reading about families who are living off of rice and vegetables for a day or soup with lentils or others who are still trying to figure out how  to squeeze out enough food to feed the family and not have everyone go to bed hungry.  I love the way people are pressing in and asking questions while analyzing the many privileges we have based primarily on where we were born.

What will we eat as a family on $2 Day?  I think we’ve finally figured it out.  With a bit of help from some of the Moms we have come to the conclusion that we will try to eat as they do.  So, here’s our menu for our family of 6:

Breakfast:  White Bread (no butter or peanut butter) (29 cents). 1/2 Banana each. (24 cents)  Tea (1 Bag shared between all of us) (8 cents).

Lunch: Homemade Injera  and small portion of homemade Shiro Wot ($1).  (Chick Pea flour mixed with hot spice, onions & oil).

Dinner:  White Bread (29 cents).

This menu should bring us in right at $2 for the day.

I hope that you enjoy the experiment as a family…and that it gets not only the creative juices flowing, but that it does something in the hearts and minds of your family members.  May God put a deep empathy in your hearts for those who live in poverty…around the world and in your backyard.

If you haven’t gotten to sign up yet, please visit www.2dollarday.com and let us know that you’re in.  We’re approaching 150 people who are going to join us so far, but we’d love to have the word spread far and wide.  Please take a minute and invite your friends…and we’ll prayerfully look forward to all that God has in store.