Generations of Love: Cassie’s Story

Many families hand things down from generation to generation: a cherished heirloom, a traditional recipe, even a name passed from parent to child. What a family chooses to hand down is integral to identity and legacy.

But alongside these precious traditions, some families unintentionally pass down something else: generational poverty and food insecurity. Breaking from this cycle is often a multi-generational journey, and rarely does it happen alone. Troy and Cassie, young parents in Oregon, are moving the needle for their children – with help from supporters like you.

When they were growing up, both Troy’s and Cassie’s families relied on assistance for food. For Cassie, it was SNAP (sometimes called food stamps) benefits and WIC. For Troy, it was a local food pantry and Feed the Children community partner: Birch Community Services.

Going to Birch was a bright spot in a rough patch for Troy: “When I was 10 or 11, that season of life was hard for my family. My dad was injured and off of work. Mom had to get a job. My sister and I were fighting all the time…it was an extremely stressful environment. I remember one of the things I looked forward to was getting this strawberry milk.”

Those few small bottles of shelf-stable milk might not have looked like much next to the other groceries the family received. But to 10-year-old Troy, they provided a tiny taste of normalcy – one small treat that was something other kids got without thinking.

“When you’re dealing with food insecurity as a child, you don’t get stuff like that,” Troy says. “You don’t get the cereal with the toy in it; those little nuanced luxuries are hard to come by. Those are special treats, like a Christmas in July experience.”

Both Troy and Cassie spent young adulthood working hard, independently pursuing educations they hoped would pay off some day. Both found good jobs. They met, married, and dreamed of starting their own family.

Up to this point, they thought, they’d done everything “right” to avoid food insecurity. After their son and daughter were born, however, reality came crashing down in the form of post-pandemic cost increases.

“It’s hard for people who were on their feet, suddenly their income doesn’t mean the same thing anymore,” Troy says.

His wife, Cassie, adds, “It was really difficult to decide between being able to get groceries, make rent, pay electricity – and not even other services, just the bare necessities.”

And there were other problems. The higher education that was supposed to help them escape poverty had left them burdened with student debt. Those well-paying jobs, which Troy and Cassie had hoped would insulate them from their parents’ struggles, were not enough to cover their needs – but too much for them to receive the same help that Cassie’s family had had.

“We don’t qualify for government assistance,” Cassie explains. “It’s something I looked into… I was looking at the price of rent, saying, ‘How do people make this work?’ I realized that just having a decent job, which I am so blessed to have, threw me out of the running.”

With SNAP and other benefits off the table, the parents began looking into other ways to make things work. They were pinching pennies and adding to their credit card debt whenever anything broke down at the house.

Then Troy remembered the local nonprofit that had helped his family as a child. The family reached out to Feed the Children community partner Birch, hoping they could help ease the strain on their over-stretched budget. It was more than they’d hoped for:

“It was a huge saving grace,” Cassie says gratefully. “With the cost of groceries going up and looking at how much we were going to be spending, it would have made things that much more difficult.”

But Birch did more than just provide food in the moment. Troy and Cassie received plants to start a small garden, further increasing their ability to feed their children without overspending. Birch also has programs that provide financial literacy programs. The couple had always found conversations about money stressful, but having a third person to listen, bounce ideas off of, and offer suggestions without judgement removed much of the anxiety.

Troy and Cassie are incredibly grateful for your support – not only for themselves, but for their children. Their children don’t have to struggle to get enough to eat, and thanks to that, will have a better chance of growing up healthy and happy.