Saturday is Nov. 1 but because of the federal government shutdown, people won’t receive the new month’s SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps. Area food pantries and nonprofits have decided to essentially act like it’s Covid all over again.
In St. Joseph County, pantries and social service nonprofits have decided to reactivate the Emergency Food Initiative they launched during Covid. That means they’ll be taking extra steps like weekly virtual strategy meetings, distributing a unified evolving resource guide, extending pantry hours, and deploying more mobile pantries and meal preparation sites.
Leading the effort has been Portage Township Trustee Jason Critchlow, who says about 1 in 4 South Bend residents, or about 20,000 households, receive SNAP.
”Can you expand your hours?" Critchlow says. "Can you provide more food than you usually will provide? Can you start providing meals when you don’t usually provide meals?”
To meet the expected demand, pantries will need more food than they have now. If you’d like to donate money to help them buy it, Critchlow recommends giving to either the Food Bank of Northern Indiana or Cultivate. They’ll then distribute food to other pantries.
“All last week I got a lot of people walked in my doors that have never donated before, to walk in and hand us checks, to walk in and clean out their pantries and bring food, and it’s a great moment for that if you’re willing to do that.”
