Syracuse N.Y. – The shelves in many food pantries are full right now, but soon these pantries across Syracuse are expecting to hand out much more food than usual. With the maximum benefits of SNAP coming to an end today, many low income families will to turn to pantries for necessary groceries.
“I would imagine that this will increase our numbers by another hundred to one hundred fifty families that we will see each week,” said Chris Honess, the pastor at The Vineyard Food Pantry near the fairgrounds,
The extra benefits of SNAP started three years ago to give aid to low income families when buying groceries. However, starting today drastic cuts have been made per household. Some families could loose up to $95 per month as the SNAP benefit program comes to a close, this could make it harder for over 30 million Americans to put food on the table. This will make food pantry’s role starts to take on a bigger responsibility. Pam O’Malley the director at the Fayetteville Manlius food pantry realizes just how pricey it is to grocery shop today because of inflation.
“I think people will be coming up short again especially with food prices being higher,” said Pam O’Malley the Director at the FM Food Pantry.
Many low-income families will start to loose this support. The Vineyard Church Food Pantry said this should be alarming to the entire Syracuse Community because everyone will be impacted.
“This is something that is elemental, if you don’t have food, you’re not going to learn, and the poverty cycle goes over and over again,” said Honess.
So as food pantries like Vineyard and Fayetteville Manlius work to increase their supply they ask anyone who can give to do so.
