Ohio food pantries see record demand in food crisis

By Marty Schladen
Ohio Capital Journal

Many food pantries in Ohio are seeing record demand as President Donald Trump has resisted court orders to provide food aid to 42 million Americans.

The outlines of an agreement to end the longest government shutdown in history emerged Sunday night. But it’s unclear how quickly the administration will work to distribute food benefits or in what amounts. 

A federal judge ruled that despite the shutdown, Trump must disburse funds that are available for the purpose. But so far he has refused.

The matter is before the appellate courts, and the Department of Agriculture on Saturday ordered some states to undo their work to disburse food funds on their own.

On Monday afternoon, the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services issued guidance saying that full benefits are unlikely to be provided this month.

“Under the revised federal calculations, nearly all recipients will receive less than 65% of their normal benefit,” it said.

“Some recipients, particularly those whose earnings place the household near the cutoff for eligibility, may receive no benefits this week under the revised calculation. An official notice explaining each household’s specific benefit change will be issued. After the federal government shutdown ends, additional (federal) guidance will be needed to determine how to handle the difference between what would ordinarily be issued for the month and what is being issued this week.”

Last week, as 1.4 million Ohioans lost their food benefits, record numbers flocked to the state’s food pantries. 

“We had our biggest day ever in history last Wednesday — 285 families in a three-hour period,” Roy Clark, executive director of the NNEMAP food pantry a mile east of the Ohio State campus in Columbus said on Monday.

About 10 yards away, a constant stream of people made their way through the season’s first snow seeking help. “

We were shoving a lot of food out the door. It’s maintaining close to that every day — even on a day like this.”

A few miles to the south, officials at the pantry at the Broad Street Presbyterian Church were also dealing with unprecedented demand.

Where they served an average 35 families a day during the pandemic, they were serving nearly 60 in July as Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act slashed $186 billion over 10 years from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

The same law slashes nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid, the federal health program for the poor, while delivering a similar amount of tax cuts to the richest 1% of Americans.

As of last week, the Broad Street pantry was serving more than 90 families a day, said Amy Miracle, a pastor at the church. That’s nearly three times the number it was serving during the pandemic.

“The reason the numbers have gone up in the past 10 days is because of the pause in SNAP benefits,” Miracle said.

“I, like everyone else in the country, have no idea (when benefits will resume.) We just know it’s having a real and immediate impact on families here in Central Ohio.”

Shawn Weatherby, a supervisor at the pantry, said resources have become so strained that it’s been turning away five to 10 visitors a day — something hunger fighters never want to do.

 “It feels bad to me, but at some point in time we have to close the line because we won’t be able to serve everybody,” he said.

Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, said that stocking up for the SNAP crisis has been difficult because planners have to balance the need for adequate supplies against not wasting perishable food.

“We are proudly operating on a backbone of generous volunteers and community organizations, many of whom are taking extraordinary steps to expand hours, to help manage traffic flow, to make sure food remains available as they’re serving much higher numbers than normal,” she said. 

Novotny said that with the interruption of federal food benefits, demand at food pantries across the state accelerated rapidly.

On Thursday, they served 70% more individuals than the average between January and September.

“We are purchasing much more food right now than we ever would normally,” Novotny said.

“I had a couple food banks tell me they had their busiest day on record for picking orders off their shelves in the warehouse to pile them on to trucks to local food pantries.” 

The Mahoning Valley has faced economic stress for a long time.

But perhaps surprisingly, food pantries there aren’t facing as big a surge as some counterparts elsewhere in the state, said Mike Iberis, executive director of the Second Harvest Food Bank of Mahoning County.

The food bank supplies pantries there and in Columbiana and Trumbull counties.

Iberis said that with the interruption of SNAP, demand has increased about 5%.

“We’ve seen an uptick, but we’ve been able to address it,” he said. “We’ve been able to supply the pantries with what they need.”

Clark, of the NNEMAP pantry in Columbus, said it makes more food deliveries than any nonprofit in Ohio — half of them to seniors.

He said it’s a vital service for people who find it hard to get around, but delivery costs extra.

“Finances are always an issue,” he said, inviting people to donate. “We barely made our budget last year and this year looks to be very tight.”

Novotny of the association of foodbanks said that anyone seeking to volunteer or donate can start at the find your food bank page on her agency’s website. Or they can start even closer to home.

“First things first,” she said. “If you know someone, if you have a personal relationship with a family you can provide direct help to, please consider doing so. It’s neighbor helping neighbor.”

But while inspiring, no charitable effort can replace what SNAP does for the most vulnerable Ohioans, Novotny said.

“This isn’t sustainable,” she said. “SNAP provides over $215 million a month in federally funded food-purchasing power. I’m really proud of what our network was doing before this. We were providing 19 million meals on average per month. But it doesn’t come close to touching what SNAP does to provide a first line of defense.”