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A Jacksonville mother is facing one hardship after another, struggling to put food on the table while waiting for her SNAP benefits to be approved. With the federal government shutdown pausing food assistance, community leaders are stepping in to help families like hers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never thought that I wouldn\u2019t be able to feed my kid,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n
This is Veronica Williams, who moved back to Jacksonville after her 10-year-old daughter, Devah Woods, was swept away in a flash flood in Texas. Her daughter was later found dead this past May. She has been waiting for her SNAP benefits to be approved while facing mounting challenges.<\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <\/b><\/a><\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve just been waiting and waiting, thinking that stuff is gonna come, and then we care about the government shut down, so it\u2019s just like now. What do we do?\u201d Williams added.<\/p>\n Like many families across Florida, Veronica is unsure where her next meal will come from.<\/p>\n \u201cI was even pawning my things like the TV because and a lot of my stuff that was in storage, and my brother also had things pawned just to get food every day because the price of food is ridiculous,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The federal government shutdown is pausing SNAP benefits for nearly three million Floridians, leaving families like Veronica\u2019s in urgent need of help.<\/p>\n \u201cMany Florida families are just one emergency away from losing it all,\u201d said State Representative Angie Nixon.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why local leaders are stepping up. Both Nixon and longtime Jacksonville restaurant owner Jerome Brown are giving away free food to families this Saturday in Northwest Jacksonville.<\/p>\n Owner Jerome Brown, seen beside his daughter Katrina Brown, said it\u2019s about giving back to the people who\u2019ve supported them since 1997.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have always got support of the community, so sometimes you have to give something back to people that have helped you stay in business for all of that time,\u201d Katrina Brown said.<\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: <\/b>Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/b><\/a>]<\/b><\/p>\n State Representative Nixon is also giving away \u201cResistance Bags\u201d filled with food for children at her Caf\u00e9 Resistance Bookshop.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s all about just having compassion and humanity for folks, and if I happen to fall on hard times, I would want someone to do the same for me,\u201d Nixon said.<\/p>\n After posting about their mission on Facebook, Katrina Brown said the response was overwhelming \u2014 more than two thousand families reached out within days.<\/p>\n \u201cI mean, I\u2019ve got people to text me about how they don\u2019t have any food left about death the children,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Representative Nixon\u2019s \u201cResistance Bag\u201d program will be handing out free to-go meals from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., while Jerome Brown Barbecue will start distributing free meals tomorrow at 3 p.m. until supplies last.<\/p>\n For mothers like Veronica Williams, these efforts are more than just meals – they\u2019re a lifeline. Both community leaders say they\u2019ll keep serving families every day until the government reopens.<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: <\/b>Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/b><\/a>] <\/b><\/p>\n Click here<\/b><\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and <\/b>click here<\/b><\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Jacksonville mother is facing one hardship after another, struggling to put food on the table while waiting…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":346386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,147719,3188,723,170129,7310,170127,170128,7167,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,170126],"class_list":{"0":"post-346385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-federal-government-shutdown","10":"tag-fl","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-florida-families","13":"tag-jacksonville","14":"tag-jerome-brown","15":"tag-katrina-brown","16":"tag-snap-benefits","17":"tag-united-states","18":"tag-united-states-of-america","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","21":"tag-us","22":"tag-usa","23":"tag-veronica-williams"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115470741767779328","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=346385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/346385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/346386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=346385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=346385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=346385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}