EASTHAMPTON — One day in early November, Aiden Esposito came home after school and posed a not-so-simple question to his mother: “Do you know what is going on in the world?”
The eighth grader’s query was prompted earlier in the day when he heard that some of his classmates would be hurt by the freeze on Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits that started Nov. 1 because of the federal government shutdown.
Rather than hash out the world’s problems around the dinner table, Esposito decided to take action with two of his Mountain View School classmates, Brennan Taylor and Stillman Havener, by organizing a schoolwide food drive.
“Me and my two other friends … wanted to run a food drive for our school because during the government shutdown and SNAP shutting down, we knew that people can’t get food. We wanted to get involved,” Esposito said.
Esposito and Havener gave credit to Taylor, who originally pitched the idea to them.
“I heard that the food stamps were going to stop and I wanted to see if there were any ways that I could get involved,” said Taylor.
Havener had similar motivation. “People won’t get the food and people should get the food that they need,” he said. “We just wanted to help in anyway that we can.”
The initiative is just one of many efforts over the last two weeks by individuals, businesses and others throughout Hampshire County to step up to fill the void left by the shutdown’s impacts on food stamp funding. Of the 1.1 million households who get SNAP benefits in Massachusetts, 13,000 live in Hampshire County.
Even though the longest government shutdown in U.S. history officially ended Wednesday night and SNAP benefits are being restored in full, food insecurity in the region remains high and any food collected or money donated to buy food is needed, experts in the field say.
That’s why food drives such as the one the Mountain View students are in the middle of are so important. The project began after Taylor, Esposito and Havener approached Principal Meredith Balise with the idea.
“It’s great. This is a story about kindness, leadership and young people who understand that community is about taking care of one another,” Balise said. “I think it’s remarkable for these three 14-year-olds to recognize that and then act on it.”
The next step involved finding a location to bring the donated food. They contacted Easthampton Community Center (ECC) Executive Director Robin Bialecki, who helped them create a plan and theme for the drive.
Bialecki told them if you like to eat it, others probably do too. She recommended that they target Thanksgiving, collecting foods specific to the holiday.
“We have a lot of kids that volunteer here from the high school but we usually don’t see too many of the middle schoolers,” Bialecki said.
The kids created fliers and posters that are posted around the middle school, along with 15 donation boxes where the food can be dropped off. The drive encourages all middle school families to bring nonperishable items.
Shutdown impacts
The food from the middle school drive, along with other donations, is helping the ECC meet a noticeable increase in demand, especially this month when the SNAP funding freeze kicked in, Bialecki said. She said the center is experiencing a roughly 30% increase in families visiting the center.
Typically, the center receives roughly 1,000 pounds of food a week, but last week they collected some 2,700. For their Thursday mobile fruit and vegetable deliveries, ECC typically delivers to roughly 225 families. Thursday last week, it was 426 families.
Bialecki said the large increase in donations has helped, but the ECC is stretching resources to meet the high demand.
“We’ve been able to meet the demand so far. It’s sometimes a matter of can we afford this,” Bialecki said. “Every household has different budgets so we try to stretch it out the best we can but not knowing how many people are showing up each day makes it difficult.”
Grow Food Northampton has seen a similar theme.
“We’ve been trying to respond as much as we can even with the constantly changing landscape,” said Niki Lankowski, communications manager.
At one of the nonprofit’s farmers markets in early November, they gave out roughly $3,800 in market tokens and up to 50% of their sales were SNAP recipients for many vendors.
Grow Food Northampton is offering a $20 match coin to SNAP recipients at the Winter Market on Nov. 22 from 10 to 2 p.m. A full $20 is not required to get the matching funds.
Grow Food Northampton’s Mobile Market service, which typically ends for the season in October, is now extended through November. The market delivers fresh produce to multiple low-income housing sites each week, with proceeds going back to the farms that supply the food.
The Food Bank of Western Massachusetts, which helps supply food to food banks throughout the region, said the suspension of SNAP benefits left tens of thousands of people in the region uncertain about how they would feed themselves and their families.
To help address this need, the Food Bank purchased $300,000 in extra food — 350,000 pounds above typical delivery — and increased the amount of food available to nearly 200 pantries, meal sites and shelters.
Deb Ondo, communications and engagement manager at the food bank, said “there is going to be a ripple effect,” of impacts from the freeze. Fortunately, the transition back has already begun.
“We have seen things slow down. There was a lot of panic and flurry but things are slowly getting back to the typical groove,” Ondo said.
While food pantries recover from the freeze, for Ondo, it marks a moment of significance that will not be forgotten. The freeze is over, but it shows how crucial SNAP benefits are and what happens when they are taken away.
“I think it’s safe to say because of the way this was handled, that there will be anxiety about a future government shutdown,” she said.
As part of the bill ending the shutdown, SNAP benefits are supposed to be restored until the end of the current federal fiscal year.
In a statement, the Food Bank of Western Massachusetts detailed just exactly what the last month has shown: “SNAP is a lifeline. When that lifeline frays, the Food Bank and the food assistance network feel the strain. The ripple effects continue, and our focus now is on replenishing our shelves, supporting our partner pantries in every way possible, and continuing to advocate for strong food assistance policies, because hunger should never depend on politics.”