A hurricane wrapped in a pandemic is a fair way to describe the daunting challenge facing food banks as they confront the unfolding disaster of unfunded SNAP benefits.
As with hurricanes and Covid, the SNAP disaster loomed in the distance before it became reality, with the possibility that it could be averted – until suddenly it couldn’t. Food banks are responding as they have in disasters past, with the overarching goal to quickly get millions and millions of tons more food into the system so it can be swiftly distributed out to people who need it.
An important difference, however, is that food banks cannot count on federal funds to help them out of the current disaster. Inaction on the part of the federal government led to the SNAP crisis in the first place. And that inaction came on top of several moves by the administration over the course of 2025 that have helped to weaken, not strengthen, food banks.
“It went from the lights are flickering to the grid is down,” said George Matysik, Executive Director of Share Food Program in Philadelphia.
While the administration said on Nov. 3 that it would distribute partial SNAP payments, it remains unclear exactly when and how the benefits would begin flowing. Each state runs its own version of a tightly choreographed, often lengthy process to get funds to show up on recipients’ benefit cards, and firing up that machinery now is no guarantee that funds will arrive in a timely manner.
The impact on November benefits is an extra blow. Food banks and pantries already anticipate increased volume as the holidays approach. “In November, our lines double,” said Dr. Melony Samuels, Founder and Executive Director of The Campaign Against Hunger based in Brooklyn, N.Y. “That’s just naturally from families who will maybe visit a pantry once or twice a year, and they come in November when their need is the greatest.”
An added burden this particular November is that food banks were already striving to meet the needs of government workers who have been furloughed, fired, or are working without pay during the government shutdown. The Bipartisan Policy Center estimated that at least 670,000 federal workers throughout the country have been furloughed, while another 730,000 continue to work, but are not getting paid. The SNAP crisis amps up the need by a stunning amount – up to 42 million people who, as of this writing, are not scheduled to receive their full SNAP benefits.
To meet the demands of the moment, food banks are flexing muscles they gained during Covid, including purchasing millions of dollars worth of food, hosting mass drive-through distributions and pushing huge amounts of product out to their pantry networks. But this time around, they’re having to do it without the benefit of federal support. “We’re trying to provide 2020-level support with 2025-level resources,” Matysik said.
Without the federal government in the picture, food banks are turning to state, county and city governments, as well as individual donors, to get funding. Such local funding, however, is guaranteed to be inadequate compared to the resources of the federal government, which pumps out about $8 billion in SNAP benefits monthly.
Local funding also perpetuates inequities in how funds get distributed since local governments don’t necessarily have the needed funds. Pennsylvania, for example, is at a budget impasse, making it impossible for food banks there to access any additional funding. And relying on local county or city governments exposes the reality that some localities are wealthier than others.
“What happens when you rely on individual counties is the wealth of that county may indicate how much resources that local entity is able to put into it,” Matysik said. “This is why the state and federal government is so important, because it creates a more equitable system.”
Nor are food banks coming at the SNAP crisis from a position of strength, compared to when the pandemic hit. At that time, many had warehouses full of food, thanks to the trade mitigation policy, in which the first Trump administration spent $23 billion to aid farmers harmed by tariffs. Early in the pandemic, they also benefited from the USDA’s Farmers to Families Food Box program, which had a $6 billion budget. Individuals were also benefitting during that time from increased SNAP allotments, a relaxation of recertification rules, and expanded eligibility.
“During Trump 1.0, there were times of disruption, but at least there were resources coming in,” Matysik said.
In contrast, the current administration has adopted several policies this year that make it harder for food banks to step up. In March, it eliminated a $500 million program that helped food banks buy fresh food from farmers, and then took away $500 million of TEFAP, a staple of food bank funding (see our story here). In July, it passed a budget bill that imposed restrictions on who could qualify for SNAP, cutting an estimated $186 billion in SNAP funding over ten years (see our story here).
Until the government shutdown occurred, food banks were perhaps most worried about the impact of the new SNAP restrictions. Originally scheduled to go into effect in 2026, the administration pushed up the deadline for compliance with the new restrictions to Nov. 1. As the shutdown wore on, however, the problem of SNAP restrictions ballooned into the crisis of no SNAP at all. “We had staff time and messaging related to the rollout of the different qualifications and work requirements that now have gotten lost in the bigger crisis of ‘Right now, SNAP benefits are frozen,’” said Scott Rumpsa, CEO of Michigan-based Community Action House.
Food banks and pantries are having to address the SNAP crisis from a deficit. “The pantries are running very, very lean,” said Dr. Samuels of The Campaign Against Hunger, which works with a network of about 200 pantries. At its own pantry, The Campaign Against Hunger had just returned to twice-a-month distributions after going down to once a month to give itself a chance to catch up from the impact of funding cuts. “It was a very difficult time from March to the present” for many emergency food programs, Dr. Samuels said. “They’re just trying to find their footing. So before you can find your footing, here you are. You’re being hit again, and this is a severe blow.”
The supply chain itself presents a major challenge, as food banks across the country move in unison to step up their food purchasing. “We’re reaching out to any food suppliers that we can think of right now,” said Natasha Pernicka, Executive Director at The Food Pantries of the Capital District. Maryland Food Bank moved quickly last week to begin purchasing $3 million worth of food, based on its experience with the pandemic. “We know that an early, aggressive buy is an important thing in terms of our organizational readiness to meet the moment,” said Meg Kimmel, President and CEO, in a press conference.
Food providers are stepping up with products designed to meet the demands of rapid, high-volume distributions. Providers including Value Added Food Sales and Fresh Connect Central are making pre-packaged food boxes available so food banks can quickly redistribute them to pantries. Value Added Food Sales has seen demand for its prepared boxes increase by ten times in recent weeks, said Tyson Miller, Director of Business Development. Fresh Connect Central, meanwhile, “has had more loads sold in the last eight days than any other time in its history,” said Joe Slater, Chief Operations Officer at Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, which operates Fresh Connect Central.
To help with distribution, transportation providers are also stepping up to support home deliveries. DoorDash announced that it would deliver one million meals for free on behalf of its 300+ food bank partners nationwide during the month of November. That announcement came on the heels of Amazon saying it would continue to provide free home deliveries to its 40+ food bank partners through 2028 (see our story here). On the operations side, Plentiful is working to make sure food banks and pantries know about its free tools for helping families find and access food resources
Everyone in the food bank community is familiar with the statistic that SNAP provides nine times more food than the entire food banking network combined. Despite those mismatched resources, food banks will continue to do what they can to fill this unprecedented gap. “This is what we do,” Slater said. “Our model acknowledges that we’re going to have continual economic, political and social shock waves that go through our communities, and we just need to be the steady, bedrock, solid, reliable partner.” – Chris Costanzo
PHOTO, TOP: A 2025 drive-through mass distribution organized by Houston Food Bank.
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