Dawn Pierce of Boise, Idaho, still remembers the time her colleagues suggested a potluck lunch at work. “I called in sick that day because I couldn’t bring anything,” she tells The Plate. “I couldn’t afford it. I was so embarrassed.”

Pierce was a paralegal and a single mom who often found herself scrambling for her family’s next meal, but she kept up appearances. When she was laid off in 2010, she knew she really needed help.

And she’s one of about 49 million people scattered around the United States of all ages, races and backgrounds who have found themselves in the position of being food insecure at some point recently, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

And scattered they are.

“There is a perception among