In late July of 2019, I moved into a tiny house. It was a converted tool shed that was roughly 10 feet wide and 20 feet deep and cost me $350 in rent each month. There was no plumbing, no central heating or air, and lots of mosquitos and spiders. It was were I would live with my two sons for the next year.
During this time in my life, I was a full-time middle school teacher at a public charter school. I worked all day and did food delivery at night, often with my sons in the car along for the ride. I was drowning in predatory debt, going through a divorce, and generally in a deeply depressed state all the time because of where I had come to in my life. I was a veteran and a college graduate living in soul-crushing poverty, while trying to shield my children from the scariness and uncertainty of it all.
Food was a necessity that just seemed to constantly be a struggle despite my best efforts to focus on it, but I didn’t have it the worst and I definitely wasn’t alone in my struggle. Food insecurity is a term coined by the USDA to describe people living in uncertainty about whether there will be enough food and where it will come from. It is a problem that 34 million Americans face across the country. In Arkansas alone, nearly 30% of the population faces food insecurity. According to an article published in February of 2026 by the University of Arkansas, 688,000 Arkansans “in both rural and urban areas lack consistent, reliable access to the nutritious food they need for an active, healthy life.”
Food insecurity often means having to face choices like is there enough for me and my kids to eat tonight, or do I just feed them and skip dinner for myself. Deals like the Wendy’s 4-for-4 and Little Caesar’s $5 Hot-n-Ready become staples of existence. Not because they are nutritious, but because they are affordable ways to ensure everyone in the house goes to bed fed. Then you get up the next day and start the hunt all over again.
Today, I don’t experience food insecurity, but I don’t write this as some sort of affirmation of the condemning ideology that says hard work can get people out of poverty. I got to a more food-secure place today because of lots of help from other people and an exceptional level of luck and resourcefulness. I managed to climb out of that pool of struggle before drowning, but that doesn’t make me look at others and think “I did it, why can’t they?” I look at those around me struggling to access food, and I think “We need to be pulling as many people out of that pool of struggle as we can.”
This is why I go to Farm School today and everyday. This is why I am so voracious about learning how to grow food. Because I know what it is like to sit in a car with my kids hoping the delivery app gives me a run where someone will tip me $5 so I can buy a pizza for my family to share tonight for dinner. I know what it’s like to sell plasma for cash to buy groceries. I know what it’s like to have to stuff down my pride to accept charity because I couldn’t do it on my own.
I know what food insecurity feels like, which is why I want to spend the rest of my life growing food to feed my family and my community. I hope you will find a way to feed people in your community too, because this is a winnable fight. We can end food insecurity.
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