Meanwhile, Debbi's mom Wanda is having an epiphany of her own.  She calls to order another meeting of the Homemaker's Club.

"Ok ladies.  I have come up with one solution to our town's financial crisis.  Factories have left our county, and there are no more subsidies for tobacco.  Unemployment is at an all time high.  a dream. 

This is what I think should happen.  I want to sell the whole town on the idea of directing federal and state food subsidies into foods produced in our home county, 42717.  The Food Stamp Act has a provision for special project, and this could be one. 

We are rich in land resource and able in every way to replace imports on beef, chicken, pork, eggs, milk, vegetables, raw and value added, by methods that we can be proud of in environmental standards. 

The Gulf of Mexico shows the result of careless farming, dead-zone hypoxia concentrates at the mouth of the Mississippi River.  Kentucky is called upon to reverse their own negative impact on the river's health. 

We could specify directly in the local-monies grant that the producers must be certified as using all the Best Management Practices recommended for farming and livestock management. 

If neighborhood people had plenty of money to spend, a routine guaranteed amount, every month spendable only to local-certified producers, think of the benefits to our county.  Farms would have the incentive to get their farm set up to certified and a supplier of that need.  Farmers earning money again is a good thing.

I love where we live and I would be proud to apply ourselves in this way and operate like a pilot project for the whole country.  I set the goal to improve my own scores towards local foods.  I set up the idea of a game, where I keep score on how my food dollars is spent.  I can do a lot on my own. 

I'd like to go for big change in score for my whole neighborhood.  I ask you all to become part of a local initiative to become a special project from the food stamp act:  monies that must be spent buying from local farmers happy to meet your needs, in a fully responsible way."

Wanda is that kind of an outgoing person, so she finds it easy and fun to tell everyone in town about this proposal.  This idea gets passed around and pretty soon the Chamber of Commerce, local paper, local radio station, and many folks get interested in making this idea a reality.  The Homemaker's Club shows their commitment with a direction called the Homemaker's Pledge.

Click here for the Casting Call, and find out about the Pledge.