The ALICEs Among Us

Novelette Bethea is a single mother of three, and a full-time college student who drives from her home in Hartford’s South End to work per diem at Gilead Community Services in Middletown. Bethea has lived through illness, foreclosure, and empty pantries.  Though she was uncomfortable doing so, she tried to apply for SNAP – food stamps – but she gave up. “Every time I called them they’d say they misplaced my paperwork,” she says. These days, if she has to go to a food pantry, she does.