The Basic Shelf Experience: a comprehensive evaluation.

The Basic Shelf Experience is a program designed to assist people living on limited incomes to make better use of their food resources. The purpose of this research was to learn if the Basic Shelf Experience program helps such people to 1. utilize food resources more effectively and 2. cope, through group support, with poverty-associated stressors that influence food security. Both quantitative and qualitative methods were used to evaluate the program objectives. Participants completed a questionnaire at the beginning and end of the six-week program. The questionnaire asked about their food access, food security, and feelings about themselves. Participants returned for a focus group discussion and completed the questionnaire again three months after the program ended. The focus group was designed to elicit information about perceived changes, if any, attributed to the program. Forty-two people completed the questionnaires pre-program and 20 post-program; 17 participated in the three-month follow-up session. While results from quantitative data analysis indicate that program objectives were not met, qualitative data provide evidence that the program did achieve its stated objectives. Our results suggest such programs as the Basic Shelf Experience can assist people living on limited incomes to achieve food security.