Montgomery County officials have said SNAP benefits could run out if the government shutdown doesn’t end, and that’s putting strain on food pantries, such as Manna Food Center.
Every month, more than 680,000 Marylanders, including 270,000 children, receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.
As the government shutdown wears on, those benefits, roughly $180 a month, have an expiration date.
“If the shutdown does not end by the end of this month and the Trump Administration does not act to tap into existing contingency funding as required by law, benefits will be paused starting November 1st. This means new SNAP benefits will no longer be deposited on EBT cards for customers to help feed their family,” the Maryland Department of Human Services said in a news release.
In Montgomery County, more than 68,000 residents are SNAP beneficiaries; 29,566 of those recipients are children.
Craig Rice, CEO of Manna Food Center, a nonprofit in Montgomery County that feeds between 5,000 to 6,000 people each month, says without funding for SNAP, “that puts tremendous strain on food assistance providers throughout the state, throughout this nation, that are really struggling and trying to figure things out right now.”
Rice said the government shutdown, coupled with the mass layoffs of federal workers, has prompted an influx of people asking for help.
“One of the saddest things we saw just last Friday were two uniformed service members who came to our doors asking for food assistance,” he said. “Those are the kinds of things that we’ve never seen before.”
Manna Food Center, Rice said, is not intended to be a family’s primary source of food.
“When it comes to SNAP versus food bank benefits, we’re only supposed to be a small part of that equation,” Rice said.
The need for food assistance was already an ongoing issue in Montgomery County, where Manna provides food pantries at more than 60 schools, according to Rice. He said that was the case before the layoffs, federal shutdown and increased grocery prices that many families are seeing.
Rice, who’s served on the Montgomery County Council and as a state delegate in Annapolis, said the economic pressures are the worst he’s seen — even accounting for the economic downturn in 2008.
“We have so many things that are happening all at the same time,” he said.
Citing high grocery prices, job cuts and the impact of tariffs on local businesses, Rice said, “This is cutting across all different sectors, and I think that’s where this time is a little different.”
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