Emergency food giveaway in South Jersey helps feed around 500 families

With a deal to end the government shutdown making its way through Congress, full payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) will be restored for 42 million Americans. However, the deal does not eliminate the struggle and stress that people who rely on the benefits felt in the interim.

At a protest in Center City on Wednesday, people demanded that SNAP be funded immediately.

“We’ve had government shutdowns before, we’ve had other crises before, but they’ve never done this,” said Adam Goldman, the director of Philadelphia Unemployment Project. “It’s a shame.”

Pastor Randy Barge of the First Presbyterian Church of Olney also spoke at the protest.

“It’s a shame that people are going hungry, that children are going hungry, while a $200 million ballrooms are being built,” Barge said, referring to the ballroom President Donald Trump is having built at the White House.

Also on Wednesday, an emergency food giveaway was held in Camden County, where volunteers packed and handed out fresh Jersey produce for around 500 families.

“This is an emergency event, it’s unprecedented,” said Fred Wasiak, the president and CEO of Food Bank of South Jersey. “We are in a crisis every day.”

“One in seven children in our four counties are food insecure, so a child is going hungry tonight,” Wasiak added.

New Jersey was able to distribute November’s SNAP payments to residents on Friday, Nov. 7, before a Supreme Court order put a temporary stay on a lower court order forcing the Trump administration to make the payments, which were supposed to go out on Nov. 1.

However, residents still had to go nearly a week with no assistance, causing them to go hungry or become financially strapped.

Pennsylvania was able to partially send out SNAP payments and Delaware was able to cover them from the beginning of the month.

On Wednesday night, the federal government reopened after President Trump signed a funding bill into law, meaning SNAP payments could go out shortly.