The US Senate continues to mull over President Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which includes cuts to food assistance programs. If the changes pass, they’ll add to the uncertainty that food pantries face as demand for groceries continues to rise.
Over 20 cars line up waiting for the food distribution to begin at the drive-thru pantry at Empower Boone in Capron, about 14 miles from Belvidere. Volunteers load their trunks with food.
66-year-old Walter Brzezinski’s been a regular since November. He said his family is going through tough times.
“My son got laid off last year,” Brzezinski said. His son worked at a supplier for the Stellantis auto plant. Brezinski’s wife is on disability, and he receives Social Security.
“It's hard to live on Social Security now,” Brzezinski said, “and what we get, we gotta try and make it stretch. When we pay our bills, we don't have much left of anything to feed ourselves.”
Brenda Valadez is the director of the food pantry, Empower Boone, which serves about 200 families a week.
“If we can take the expense of groceries out of their hands,” Valadez said, “and let them focus on maybe paying their electric bill or their medical bills, then we're doing the right thing.”
According to the national food bank network Feeding America, one in eight Illinois residents face hunger. It’s even higher in rural and small towns due to low wages and lack of transportation to grocery stores.
The Covid-era USDA Local Food Purchase Assistance grant - or LFPA - made it possible for small local farmers to provide fresh produce and protein to food pantries.
Valadez said it helped make healthy food accessible.
“We don't want to be the pantry that just gives the cereal and the chips and the non-healthy items,” she said. “That produce and those eggs are essential. That fresh yogurt that gives people their vitamin D helps their bones, especially those seniors.”
It was a popular with farmers and consumers, so the Biden Administration extended it.
In March, the Trump administration announced it would no longer reimburse for expenses incurred after his inauguration. That left grantees scrambling. The administration eventually reinstated the program through the end of September, but after that - no new money.
The food pantry itself is not government funded, but Valadez said cuts to programs like LFPA, put a strain on their ability to provide for families.
“If our funding and our programs that are funded are canceled out,” she said, “we're going to be able to give half the food.”
Just down the road in Harvard, Becky Stark runs Midnight Sun Farm. They provide eggs and produce to the pantry, but pivoted quickly to plant items that will be ready before the LFPA program ends.
“This is just a sort of like an accelerated, almost like a panic seeding,” Stark said. “Sometimes farmers will do that just to, just to get something in the ground and get something . . .”
That something is spinach, which she’ll deliver to the pantries in bundles for them to be distributed at the food pantry.
Robert Desio, the senior manager of public policy at the Northern Illinois Food Bank said cuts to LFPA and the House budget proposal to reduce other food assistance come at a time when the number of people relying on food pantries continues to rise in Illinois.
“Personally, I feel squeezed, kind of at every turn,” Desio said. “And so, think that just the general cost of living, but specifically for us, we think about food. So, food prices have risen -- they're expensive. And with that loss of benefits well, that's just going to drive people to food pantries and to seek assistance from us.”
Under the “Big Beautiful Bill” budget proposal the state would have to cover some of the costs of the SNAP benefits, which provide dollars to qualifying low-income families to purchase food.
Desio said Illinois, like other states, is not in a strong financial position to make up for the difference in lost funding.
“So, it's, in effect, it's a cut to SNAP,” he said. “Congress can say that they didn't cut SNAP, the states cut it. But it really, you know, it's a harmful cut to SNAP.”
Over 400,000 Illinois households may lose SNAP benefits under the proposed plan, according to a statement from the IL governor’s office.
Desio said food pantries won’t be able to offset the loss in SNAP benefits.
“They [food pantries] are not on the scale of SNAP, and SNAP is the most effective - they call it the front line of anti-hunger work. It is the most effective program that will have to fight hunger.”
He said for every meal that network Feeding America provides, SNAP supplies nine.
Cuts will mean more families relying on food pantries, he said.
“It will just be a challenge for us, but we will still be here for our neighbors.”
Republicans argue cuts to food assistance programs such as SNAP are necessary to reduce waste, even as advocates say it will hurt the country’s most vulnerable families.
The proposed cut to SNAP is among the other social-safety net programs that may see reductions if the Senate passes Pres. Trump’s budget plan.
In addition to provisions to cut food assistance and Medicaid, which serves low-income Americans, Trump’s budget bill extends tax cuts that are set to expire at the end of this year. An analysis by the Congressional Budget Office, which is a nonpartisan federal agency, finds the proposed bill would add $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade.
