Texans wait in line at food banks as government shutdown suspends SNAP
Hundreds of cars were waiting in food bank lines in Texas as SNAP benefits were suspended due to the government shutdown.
As SNAP recipients and others lost their benefits due to the government shutdown, neighbors are helping community members across the country, signing up to become grocery shopping buddies and paying for food.
People connected through social media posts and grassroots efforts to provide food assistance in their communities, and the brother-sister pair also launched a website to connect people across the country.
Many participants say they will continue to participate even after partial or full SNAP benefits are reinstated. The Trump administration has announced that some SNAP benefits will be paid out in November.
Neighbors can help as shopping companions
Last week, Kelsey Strauss, 34, saw a post about her friends at the grocery store in a social media group chat called “I’m not buying anything.”
“I thought, ‘Someone should organize something to bring these people together,’ and, well, I’m on maternity leave so I have a little bit of flexibility, so I’m going to give it a try,” said the Princeton, N.J., teacher.
Strauss matched 100 families within six days. Another 90 families are asking for help, but she has temporarily closed the form because there aren’t enough people willing to be her grocery shopping companions.
“It’s really about having a neighbor who helps the neighbor feel,” Strauss told USA TODAY. “For the people who are buying the groceries, it’s more tangible than just donating money to an organization. For the people who are receiving the groceries… it’s like, ‘My community has my back.’”
Strauss said that once people are paired, they can coordinate. Some people send money directly to recipients or go shopping together. Strauss’ husband received a list of needed groceries from his partner and delivered $100 worth of groceries.
Strauss has seen firsthand what happens when students face food insecurity. “In my classroom, I know that if kids don’t have enough to eat over the weekend, Monday is a tough time,” she said.
Dina Skinner, 54, a single mother of a 19-year-old in Princeton, was grateful to have someone to buy her groceries.
Skinner worked as a social worker until her career was cut short by a brain tumor. A friend of hers at the grocery store met her and gave her a $200 grocery gift card.
“I was so grateful,” Skinner said. “It’s very humbling.”
Feeling uplifted by the outpouring of support
Meag Sargent, 30, of Milwaukee, posted on her social media account that she wanted to be a friend at the grocery store. But she soon started receiving calls from people who needed more help than she could sponsor.
So she reached out to a group chat of friends, including Jenny Holmdall, 31.
After creating a Google Form and posting it online, we quickly received over 200 requests from volunteers and recipients. Sargent said they are “building this plane as we go,” but so far have paired 20 people and are looking to connect 50 more.
Friends said they decided not to limit requests for assistance to SNAP recipients because there are many people who are food insecure but do not qualify for benefits. It also plans to continue pairing people even if SNAP benefits are reinstated, as many say they still have difficulty buying groceries even if they receive full benefits.
Sargent is assisting two families in November and December. She donates $400 a month to one family and is trying to reconcile that with another family, a single mother with one child who requested $50 worth of groceries. Sargent said she is trying to see if more help is needed.
Friends said it was heartening to see so many people helping strangers.
“For the past year, I’ve felt pretty depressed about society and felt like, ‘People don’t care about each other and no one’s connected.’ This has actually proven to be the opposite. In fact, I’m starting to wonder if this group of people feels exactly the same way I do,” Holmdor said.
“We are coming together and working together to make positive change,” she said.
Connecting grocery friends across the country
Many of the grocery store buddy systems popping up around the country are based on specific communities, but Nina Quincey had a different idea. A Houston woman asked her brother, who lives in Mooresville, North Carolina, to build a website that would connect people in need with those willing to help anywhere in the United States.
Brent Friar, who runs a digital marketing and website development company, and his colleagues had Findagrocerybuddy.com up and running within 48 hours. This website is set up to allow recipients to request grocery shopping carts via Instacart and PayPal. A friend at the grocery store can sponsor a cart. No information is shared between recipient and donor.
The website was launched on October 31st and has so far helped 36 families in 15 states. Frier said the process was slow because it manually checked and verified eligibility for people who lost SNAP benefits, are unpaid federal employees or are food insecure due to layoffs or other reasons. He hopes to get more volunteer help to speed up the process.
Most applicants are asking for about $150 to $200 worth of groceries, but the largest amount in a single purchase was from a donor who purchased more than $600 worth of food for a family, Friar said.
Miriam Kavanagh, 49, of Covington, Kentucky, was shocked when a stranger paid for about $180 worth of Instacart groceries within a day of signing up on the website.
“A lot of people feel like people on SNAP just buy junk food,” she says. “I was grateful to finally be able to buy fresh spinach instead of canned spinach for my smoothies, which I knew I wouldn’t be able to do during the shutdown.”
In a letter of gratitude that Kavanaugh hoped would reach a friend at the grocery store, he called him a “saint on the street.”
“You have made my life so much easier. Even with all the languages in the world, there are still not enough ways to say thank you. No matter who you are or what you do, you, your family, and your friends will forever be in my prayers.”
Betty Lin-Fisher is a consumer reporter for USA TODAY. Contact her at blinfisher@USATODAY.com or follow her at @blinfisher on X, Facebook and Instagram and @blinfisher.bsky.social on Bluesky.. Sign up for our free The Daily Money newsletter, breaking down complex consumer and financial news. Subscribe here.
