Nicky Stacy is the founder of Hazel Green Food Project. It’s based in Wolfe County, but reaches 35 counties across eastern Kentucky. She says the delay in payments has strained her food pantries.
“Our goal was to do 100 meals (Monday). When we ended last night at 6:00, we had served 300 meals,” she said. “That's the need. And these people were coming to get it, and they were crying.”
Nearly 600,000 Kentuckians rely on SNAP benefits to afford groceries. Eastern Kentucky in particular is one of the poorest regions in the U.S.
State data shows more than 1,000 households in Wolfe County — with a population of around 6,000 people — are SNAP participants.
Stacy says demand has been outpacing the supply of available food.
“This is something that's not going to ease up,” she said. “Our shelves are empty. We don't have any canned food, hardly. I'm down to, like, my last five emergency food boxes.”
Other pantries across the region are also seeing similar spikes in turnout. Rita Thayer runs Two Loaves Food Pantry in the Lewis County town of Vanceburg.
“We usually do anywhere from 160 to 240 people a week,” Thayer said. “Last week, it went up just a little bit, up to 350, and then this week was up to 630.”
Thayer says around a quarter of the people showing up are either elderly or children. Many food pantries typically keep emergency stock for their most vulnerable populations.
"It's more concerning with the kids, the school age kids,” she said. “I just worry — everybody does, you know — about them being hungry. It seems like the older people can kind of manage themselves. These little kids can't.”
Some organizations say they’ve been able to keep stocked through donations. Libby Wasserbeck is the pantry manager of Christian Appalachian Project, which runs operations in Rockcastle and Jackson counties.
“These communities care very much about people and supporting their food pantries, and so there are people starting their own food drives at churches. We have a fire department that's taking donations. We have people just dropping food off to the pantries,” Wasserbeck said.
Earlier this week, city officials in Lexington launched a month-long food drive with God’s Pantry Food Bank. Resident Charles Mead says the drive’s announcement was a relief to him.
“It's scary to me to think that, now everybody's worrying about food pantries, with the food stamps, is there going to be enough food in these food pantries? And now I'm seeing that they're making big moves like this, and it's giving me a little hope,” Mead said.
Gov. Andy Beshear also pledged $5 million towards food banks from the state budget. He announced Wednesday he’s sending the state National Guard to staff them.
Back in Wolfe County, Nicky Stacy is hoping Kentucky lawmakers can help fund SNAP through the state’s rainy day fund while the shutdown continues.
“I feel like we really do need a special session,” she said. “I know the governor tried to do the best he can right now and with the $5 million to food banks, but I feel like he put a band-aid on it. He didn't really fix it.”
The USDA said it would pay around half of the usual SNAP payments during the shutdown after a federal court ruling, but it’s still not clear how quickly that money would appear on debit cards.
