As the government shutdown drags into its second month, the uncertainty around the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits – more commonly known as SNAP – is adding to the stress that area food shelves and many in the Jewish community are facing.
“There’s just less food available and fewer donations because everybody’s budget is being stretched,” said Jewish Family and Children’s Service of Minneapolis Chief Program Officer Amy Weiss. “All of that is happening at the same time that the needs are going up.”
Weiss said that the emergency food boxes that JFCS distributes have surpassed 118 boxes in 10 months, compared to the 107 that were distributed in 2024. Weiss said that the caseworkers who are meeting people in their homes often keep a box in their car just in case.
“If it’s a Thursday afternoon and they see the kitchen is empty, what does that look like for [the client]? How will they get through the weekend?” Weiss said. “The staff are working hard to try and identify [need] and keep that in mind.”
Kelsey Slovut-Einertson, the food security coordinator at JFCS, said a new program that’s been implemented with the emergency food boxes has been to make some boxes that are culturally relevant to the East African, Eastern European, and Hispanic communities.
“It’s not going to be one size fits all, but we’re trying to make some additions, like adding lentils into a box, if that’s a staple for a community,” Slovut-Einertson said. She said the trial run of five Hispanic-culture themed boxes was quickly distributed last week.
The emergency food boxes typically include staple items that can be useful in a household. If people are interested in donating, Slovut-Einertson said these items would be helpful:
- Tomato sauce (no glass jars)
- Canned diced tomatoes
- Canned vegetables
- Canned corn
- Oatmeal
- Breakfast cereal
- Bag of white rice
- Spaghetti
- Canned tuna
- Canned chicken
- Peanut butter (no glass jars)
- Mac & Cheese
- Canned fruit
- Dried lentils
- Dried beans
For people who are looking for the nearest food shelf, The Food Group (formerly Hunger Solutions, has an interactive map. Many food shelves require appointments in advance.
“This is just a perfect storm, because we’ve got the holidays coming and people’s budgets are already beginning to be stressed from that. And then you add in the higher cost of food,” Weiss said.
In The Food Group’s 2024 report on food shelf visits in Minnesota, the same groceries that cost $100 cost $128 in 2024, while SNAP benefits dropped. Minnesotans on SNAP were receiving $100 less each month in 2024 from 2023.
The report found that Minnesotans made nearly 9 million visits to foodshelves in 2024, setting a record for a fourth straight year. There was an increase of 1.4 million visits from 2023, and 2.5 times more than 2019, before the COVID pandemic. More than one-third of the 2024 visitors were children.
Increasing uncertainty
PRISM, the food shelf co-located with JFCS in Golden Valley, has been seeing increased utilization – and that’s before taking into account people who may have lost their SNAP benefits. Michelle Ness, the executive director of PRISM, said that her organization has seen a 150 percent increase in visits since COVID started.
“We’re working at full capacity already as wages haven’t kept up with inflation and the costs of living doesn’t seem to be going down,” said Ness. “What we’re starting to see is more people coming in.”
The newcomers at PRISM are a mix of people who’ve never used a food shelf before to make sure they have enough, and those who are getting SNAP benefits as well as using food shelves to supplement their shopping.
“It’s a patchwork of resources that people cobble together,” Ness said. “Even those who do use it now don’t have SNAP. Our hope is to respond as robustly as possible in the heightened need.”
Thrown into the uncertainty of SNAP funding is the Oct. 31 development of two Federal judges ordering the Trump administration to pay for some SNAP benefits through the use of emergency funds that have already been allocated to the Department of Agriculture. Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison was among the leaders of the lawsuit filed in Massachusetts.
“Donald Trump is still using hunger as a political weapon against the American people,” said Ellison. “While I am glad to see some SNAP benefits resuming as a result of our lawsuit, it is not close to enough.”
Ellison said that the USDA plan in the event of a government shutdown that: “Core programs of the nutrition safety net, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP)… shall continue operations during a lapse in appropriations, subject to the availability of funding. …Congressional intent is evident that SNAP’s operations should continue since the program has been provided with multi-year contingency funds that can be used for State Administrative Expenses to ensure that the State can also continue operations during a Federal Government shutdown.”
“Our best-case scenario is the administration complies and benefits get loaded,” Ness said. “With 500,000 Minnesotans being SNAP recipients, that’s a lot of people with new needs.”
State, local assistance
On Nov, 3, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey announced that $150,000 is being directed to local food shelves, and on Oct. 27, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz directed $4 million to Minnesota food shelves to purchase items from food banks like Second Harvest Heartland and The Food Group. The amount allocated is based on how many people are served by the food shelf; Ness said she thinks the appropriation will be about $15,000.
“We are starting to spend more than we have budgeted” for purchasing from food banks, Ness explained. “We know the need is coming, so we don’t want to wait until we’re out to order more food. [The $15,000] will allow us to respond as quickly as we can.”
The modest influx of money from the state is useful, but it’s a drop in the bucket; the state receives $73 million per month for SNAP recipients, and that money is loaded onto an Electronic Benefit Transfer card each month. On Nov. 3, the Trump administration said it would begin partially loading SNAP benefit cards.
“That money isn’t going to get spent at grocery stores,” Ness said, highlighting the downstream economic effects. According to Ellison’s office, in a slowing economy, $1 in SNAP benefits generates $1.54 in economic activity.
Ness said that in talking with leaders at other food shelves, they’ve also seen the numbers increasing.
“It’s getting worse regardless of what happens in November,” she said. “It’s not just getting through this one month.”
Ness said the new SNAP eligibility rules in President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act of 2025 may kick a number of people off the rolls as work requirements go up.
Eligibility for SNAP varies by state and, in Minnesota, you can make 200 percent of the federal poverty level and still be eligible for SNAP. The poverty level varies by the number of people in your household, but for a family of four, it’s $32,150 in the contiguous U.S.
“There’s a ton of people who don’t qualify and can’t make ends meet,” Ness said. “And there are already a number of restrictions on what you can buy with SNAP that make food shelves important.”
Nationally, MAZON: A Jewish Response To Hunger, has been pushing Congress and the USDA to fund SNAP. Liza Lieberman, the vice president of public affairs at MAZON, said that with the release of funding by the Trump administration, people will hopefully see funds available soon.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty,” she said. Families and food pantries and providers are [wondering] ‘What’s going to happen?’” she said. “This is reminiscent of during COVID when so many people were lining up in their cars at food pantries. That is a visual moment of like, what are we doing here? How did we let it get to this staggering moment.”
Lieberman said that MAZON is also working at the state level on hunger issues, and praised the local efforts to fill the gap.
“They have no promise of being reimbursed by the federal government, but some of them are like, this is the right thing to do. We need to use whatever funding we can to be able to fill this gap so that people have the support they need,” Lieberman said. “We’ve seen some companies do that too. Obviously, a lot of donors and volunteers and the champions are doing truly heroic work,”
Lieberman hopes that when this crisis has passed, people will see the good in how groups came together.
“I’m hoping that we never forget this moment of both the alarm and the crisis, but also people coming together to support people,” she said. “I think that is really the American way. …We think that our policymakers, the charitable sector, philanthropy, the private sector, certainly should all come together to end this.”