DATE: Tuesday, November 18, 1997            TAG: 9711180272

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A1   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY HOLLY A. HEYSER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   86 lines

POLITICIANS ON FOOD STAMPS? EARLEY, OTHERS TAKE CHALLENGE

Think preparing the perfect Thanksgiving dinner is tough? Try doing it on food stamps.

That is the challenge next week for thousands of Hampton Roads families who depend on welfare.

But this year, they've got unusual company: Attorney General-elect Mark Earley, Virginia Commissioner of Social Services Clarence Carter and Lt. Gov. Donald S. Beyer Jr.

Those three men and more than 80 other policy-makers around the state have agreed to spend the next four weeks eating on a budget of what they would receive in food stamps if they were on welfare, from $122 for one person to $919 for a family of 10.

It is part of Walk-A-Mile, an effort to bring together two groups of people who rarely speak to - much less understand - one another: policy-makers and welfare recipients.

Not only will policy-makers eat on a food-stamp budget, but they will speak with a welfare recipient once a week and spend at least two days with that person before the project is over - one day doing what the welfare recipient normally does, the other doing what the politician normally does.

The idea comes from a Washington state woman named Natasha Grossman. Several years ago, while working with her state legislature, she noticed that many elected leaders who made decisions about welfare had never met anyone who depended on public assistance.

Grossman started Walk-A-Mile in 1994 as a project to address that shortcoming. She ended up discovering that both groups of people had a lot to teach each other.

``We had welfare recipients who voted for the first time, who have gotten jobs, women who've been asked to participate on community boards,'' she said.

``And we had politicians who got up and said, `I cheated (on the food budget) because I had to cheat,' '' she said.

One elected representative waited in line all day at a food bank with her 5-year-old daughter, only to be told she needed to go to a different food bank that served the area where she lived. She ended up begging for the food.

``She said it was the most humiliating experience she'd ever had,'' Grossman said.

When the Virginia Council Against Poverty began inviting politicians to participate in Walk-A-Mile here, some refused.

``I cannot name names,'' said project coordinator Brien Holland, ``but we had a delegate from the Rocky Mount area who said, `I can't live on that! I like to eat.' ''

But 86 have signed up for an experience whose main objective, Holland said, is to ``see what happens'' when people communicate who might never meet under ordinary circumstances.

Sponsors have no expectations that any particular legislation will come out of it nor expectations that welfare recipients will run for public office. It is just about promoting understanding among fellow humans, organizers say.

``The people who are doing this project see worth in walking that mile and feeling what it's like,'' Holland said.

In Hampton Roads, participants include Del. Thelma Drake, R-Norfolk; Sen. (and Attorney General-elect) Mark Earley, R-Chesapeake; and Sen. Frederick Quayle, R-Chesapeake.

How does Earley plan to feed his family of eight on Thanksgiving when he is limited to a $735 food budget for the next four weeks? He is going to do what he always does - take the family down the street to his mother's house for the holiday.

As for the rest of the month, Earley and his wife, Cynthia, say they will probably be able to stick to the budget, provided they don't buy lots of fancy snacks or eat out.

Cynthia Earley said she usually spends about $125 a week to feed herself, her husband and their six children, ages 10 months to 14 years. That is far less than the $184 a week they would get in food stamps.

``But that's grocery store food,'' she said. ``It doesn't count eating out.''

Earley, a chief sponsor of welfare reform in the Senate, said he signed up because, ``I thought it would be a good opportunity to see firsthand what it's like.''

Grossman said her highest hope for Walk-A-Mile is that people will learn how similar they are to one another.

``People who are privileged are just as intimidated by talking with someone in poverty as people in poverty are (talking to them),'' she said. ``This breaks a lot of stereotypes on both sides.'' ILLUSTRATION: [Color Photo]

VICKI CRONIS/File photo

To empathize with welfare recipients, Attorney General-elect Mark

Earley will feed his family, left, for the next four weeks with $735

in food stamps. KEYWORDS: WELFARE REFORM FOOD STAMPS

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