Food4Kids’ Statement on the Impact of SNAP Pause

This weekend, the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will pause all monthly benefits to the approximately 42 million Americans. 1 in 8 Florida residents rely on SNAP to help meet their nutritional needs. More than 59% of SNAP participants in our state are families with children according to data from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonpartisan research and policy institute.

In North Central Florida, 1 in 4 children lack access to adequate food and nutrition according to Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap. Food4Kids Backpack Program of North Florida exists today because of this statistic. In the four counties that our program serves, nearly 14,000 children are considered food insecure. The children and families experiencing chronic hunger don’t always look the way you think. Most families who rely on SNAP benefits are from working households but still don’t have enough to feed their children consistently.

Children like Miles* whose parent wrote to us to say, “Thank [you] for even considering helping out our family because as a single parent working a minimum wage job, it’s very difficult to maintain and provide when you have multiple children in the home. Knowing that they can get a snack or a meal daily helps a long way because sometimes I don’t know how the next meal will be provided.”

Food4Kids Backpack Program is a private, nonprofit organization that provides bags of nonperishable meals and snacks for chronically hungry children every weekend during the school year. Our bags are delivered to 68 local schools and are sent home on Fridays with children who may otherwise go without food until they return to school on Monday. We also distribute hundreds of boxes of food for longer breaks from school like Thanksgiving and Winter Break. Food4Kids receives no government funding. Contrary to popular belief, most of the food we distribute is purchased, in bulk, from national food distributors and funded by donations and grants. Our bags are supplemented with nonperishable food that is donated by the community.

As SNAP benefits are paused, we are prepared but not panicked. We planned for an increase in need for our services this school year. We watched our enrollments increase by 12.5% in the last week alone and we expect many more enrollments in the coming weeks. We stocked our warehouse with food to account for this increase and we have already submitted additional food orders to help us restock as we head into the holiday season. But none of what we do is possible without community support.

I received calls and emails from several local agencies, concerned citizens, and safety net programs this week asking what we are doing and how they can help. It is easy to allow yourself to become panicked or sink into despair. But there is much we can do to support our community’s children, our friends, and our neighbors. Now is the time to act. Now is the time to reach out to programs like Food4Kids and other local food banks and pantries that serve our communities to volunteer and donate items to keep shelves stocked. Now is the time to invest in critical programs addressing food insecurity on an ongoing basis. Your contribution of just $9 per week helps ensure a family receives a bag of nonperishable meals every weekend. We may not be able to change the circumstances for all 42 million people who rely on SNAP, but we can absolutely help feed the 14,000 children in our community who need us. Together, we can nourish our future.

Sincerely,

Margot DeConna, MBA, CFRE

Executive Director

*Name changed to protect the family’s privacy.