SUPER MARKET
My family lives in southern Carroll County, Maryland on the border with Howard County, Maryland. Howard County, Maryland is the third richest county in the United States with a median household income of $108,844 (Sawe, 2016). We are at the heart of the most educated, highest income, fourth largest Combined Statistical Area in the U.S (The Brookings Institution, 2016). The Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area has six of the top ten highest income counties in America (United States Census Bureau, 2013).
For all this prosperity, one in every eight households in Carroll County has gone hungry in a recent year (Kelvey, 2014), 10,140 people in Carroll County are food insecure (Gundersen, 2016). My wife is a United Methodist Minister and her church, Morgan Chapel United Methodist Church, feeds 120 families a month from a congregation of 50. In the face of such need, I find it striking that there are five supermarkets within a two-mile radius of my home.
In the face of such need in my county, I chose to document the bounty that is available to the residents of my neighborhood. We live amid an embarrassment of choices; the shelves seemingly stretch endlessly with plenty. Fruits, vegetables, meats, hot sauces, cakes, pastries, drugs, cosmetics, soda, and frozen foods.
Works Cited:
Gundersen, e. a. (2016). Map the Meal Gap 2016: Food Insecurity and Child Food Insecurity Estimates at the County Level. Retrieved from Feeding America: http://www.feedingamerica.org/hunger-in-america/our-research/map-the-mea...
Kelvey, J. (2014, September 7). It's hunger action month; can we make it the last? Carroll County Times, p. 1.
Sawe, B. E. (2016, September 16). Richest Counties in the United States. Retrieved from worldatlas: http://www.worldatlas.com/articles/richest-counties-in-the-united-states...
The Brookings Institution. (2016, July 28). Washington-Baltimore Metropolitan Area. Retrieved from Brookings: https://www.brookings.edu/research/washington-baltimore-metropolitan-area/
United States Census Bureau. (2013, September). Household Income: 2012. Retrieved from U.S. Census Bureau: https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acsbr12-02.pdf