{"id":347812,"date":"2025-11-01T11:01:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T11:01:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/347812\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T11:01:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T11:01:22","slug":"philadelphia-food-banks-pick-up-during-snap-freeze","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/347812\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia food banks pick up during SNAP freeze"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>As the rain crashed down in Philadelphia\u2019s Fishtown neighborhood Thursday morning, dozens of residents lined up outside the Lutheran Settlement House.\n<\/p>\n<p>The food bank is now serving double the number of clients, leading the nonprofit to source food from other donor organizations to meet the increased demand. On Thursday, Lutheran Settlement House served 115 visitors, compared with a typical day of 30 clients.\n<\/p>\n<p>Food banks nationwide are bracing for a surging need for groceries as benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as SNAP, freeze amid a government shutdown that has lasted for more than four weeks.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEveryone who comes to us for assistance is leaving with something, but I don\u2019t think they\u2019re leaving with enough,\u201d said David Chiles, executive director of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.lutheransettlement.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Lutheran Settlement House<\/a>. \u201cIf SNAP benefits are frozen, there\u2019s no way for social service organizations and the hunger relief network to manage that loss of funds, and that\u2019s going to be devastating for us.\u201d\n  <\/p>\n<p>Lutheran Settlement House is just one Philadelphia food bank that is reporting an increased volume of applications for free meals. The organization is purchasing more food than ever before.\n<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro signed a disaster declaration Friday to direct $5 million in state funding to the nonprofit organization <a href=\"https:\/\/www.feedingpa.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Feeding Pennsylvania<\/a> to help food banks purchase more healthy food, including from local farmers.\n<\/p>\n<p>Food banks are hopeful the funding will help them meet the demand. However, the funding doesn\u2019t match the $366 million in monthly SNAP benefits Pennsylvanians receive, and food banks continue to urge the federal government to keep SNAP benefits afloat.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m incredibly grateful for our state and county governments stepping up to help fill the gaps left by the failures of our federal leadership,\u201d said George Matysik, executive director of ShareFood program. The organization distributes food assistance to food pantries across the Philadelphia area, which collectively serve more than 500,000 people a month, according to Matysik.\n<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHunger doesn\u2019t take a break, and neither can we. A freeze of SNAP benefits is unacceptable and while this $5 million infusion is much needed, it won\u2019t take the place of missing federal investment,\u201d he added.\n        <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the rain crashed down in Philadelphia\u2019s Fishtown neighborhood Thursday morning, dozens of residents lined up outside the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":347813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,1448,2830,1311,7167,67,586,132,5230,68,2969,49740],"class_list":{"0":"post-347812","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-pa","10":"tag-pennsylvania","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-snap-benefits","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa","19":"tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115474103396951012","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347812","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=347812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/347813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}