Today in any town in any county in any state putting A meal on the table can present so many challenges. In our small rural county it is especially hard for low income families up until a couple of years ago we had just one small supermarket and a Dollar store. Of course there is no public transportation and not many jobs available . This meant the younger more qualified people have moved away leaving a lot of older people working longer and many unskilled workers trying to earn a wage that will support their families. So this meant that people have come to rely on SNAP benefits and local commodities and supplemental food pantries. As a Nutrition Education Assistant for the local extension office, I brought my thoughts on this to the attention of the Judge and fiscal court who had supported my idea as to running programs coinciding with the USDA commodity program distributions . This was to encourage families to use what is being offered by way of meal support and programs that teach food resource management at home.

This Fall one pot cooking program was again aimed at the low income families that came to the USDA commodity distribution days and I structured the program again around meeting with each family for 30-40 minutes and this time included them in online communications with the extension office to show us what ideas they could come up with for making meals using one vessel such as hotpot , baking tray, crockpot, skillet, or just a bowl for salads etc. The participants also did the surveys pre and post in the program. This time they used their smart phones if they had them to send us pictures of how they made their recipes into a full meal they told us if they like the recipe or how they changed it to suit their tastes. This was teaching the use of simple technologies  Many participants taught me some new tricks on shopping with online couponing. Each family compared their photo's to other participants. Many participants this time were grandparents taking care of a grandchild and cooking around sports practice and other activities for these children was a new challenge for some of them. The biggest success was about 30% had never been to the extension office and were so pleased for this experience.