Across the state, 1.4 million North Carolinians rely on the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), a federally funded food assistance program. A majority of individuals who rely on the program are children, elderly, and people with disabilities.
Currently, the Food Bank of Central and Eastern North Carolina serves over 600,000 North Carolinians in 30 counties around the state. Amid federal changes to SNAP, the food bank has warned that many programs are already struggling to meet the current demand.
In an interview with WUNC, Jason Kanawati Stephany, vice president of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern NC, has stated that North Carolina is facing a hunger crisis.
The food bank currently sees double-digit increases in the number of families seeking food assistance on a year-to-year basis.
“We’re in the worst hunger crisis that we’ve seen in nearly 20 years and with SNAP cuts that have been passed at the federal level, we’re going to see that spike in a way that we can’t fill the gap up,” Amy Beros, CEO of the Food Bank of Central & Eastern North Carolina, told NC Newsline.
“Our partners are saying that they’re seeing anywhere from a 20% to 50% increase in just the past year of people receiving services, and that’s without the cuts that have happened,” Beros added.
The cuts will also impact local farmers and grocers who rely on the additional federal funding.
“We have heard from so many grocers that we partner with, so many farms that we partner with, that if these cuts go through, they will be forced to cut jobs, they will be forced to scale back, and many of them will be forced to close,” Kanawati Stephany, told WUNC. “Those cuts are going to be felt disproportionately in rural communities, where we are going to see even less food available at the grocery store, even fewer good paying jobs in the community, even less support for local farms.”
The Trump administration is cutting a projected $300 billion from SNAP over 10 years, which may push more families, farmers, and SNAP-dependent individuals into the ever-increasing hunger crisis.
