Food banks across the country are expecting a surge in demand as SNAP benefits expire because of the government shutdown. That includes pantries like Two Rivers Head Start in Aurora. Orlando Vasquez is the pantry’s coordinator.
“We have gotten an increase of people coming in here. So, right now, like last Friday, it was probably one of the craziest Fridays that I've been here,” he said. “I've seen people that had not been in this pantry for a few years, but now, with everything that's happening, they have to come back.”
He says they also have to do more with less. They were using the USDA’s Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) program, known as IL-EATS in Illinois, to buy local meat and produce. The Trump administration eliminated it earlier in the year, and it officially shuttered at the end of September.
LFPA was created in 2021 and Vasquez says they’d only gotten to take advantage of it for the past few months to purchase fresh produce like tomatoes, spinach, and mushrooms, along with ground beef.
“We hadn't had ground beef in a while, and when we had it, they were very happy. But again, unfortunately, that program is no longer in existence,” said Vasquez.
They get a lot of food from larger food banks, but they’re also seeing more need, which Vasquez says means popular items like meat get scarce.
They also rely on grocery store donations from Target, Wal-Mart, & Trader Joes, but he doesn’t always know how many boxes they’ll receive until he gets there, so they often purchase food directly to make sure they have enough.
Two Rivers’ pantry normally serves around 200 people each month. Vasquez thinks they may have to expand their slots now.
In the weeks before the threat to food benefits, he says they’d actually seen fewer people come to the pantry, often because people were afraid to leave home due to federal immigration action. He says they have delivery options for people unable to pick up food on their own.
