Your voice can make a difference

A food bank running low on food during the government shutdown

As the longest ever federal government shutdown continues with no end in sight, its ripple effects are now affecting millions of lives around the country. Tens of millions of people who use benefits such as SNAP (food stamps), WIC, and school meals, are bracing for losing those benefits in the coming months. These benefits are essential to the nutrition, health, development, learning, and well-being of tens of millions of hard-working Americans. We think it is unconscionable to use people’s lives and well-being as political bargaining chips.

It a statement released on January 7th the Food Research and Action Center (FRAC) said: “If SNAP, school meals, WIC, and other USDA nutrition programs reduce or terminate benefits in the next few weeks, decades of progress in the fight against hunger will unravel and millions of Americans will face desperate levels of hunger. That alone is absolutely unacceptable. But the consequences go beyond hunger. People’s health will worsen, hospital and health care costs will rise, students’ learning will suffer, food retailers will lose business, local economies will weaken, and huge numbers of jobs will be lost.”

Contact your senators and urge them to reopen the government without compromising our values. We believe our political leaders need to end this shutdown right now without putting millions of lives at risk. To quote FRAC again, “The true looming national emergency is America failing to meet the nutritional needs of 38 million SNAP beneficiaries, 22 million free and reduced-price school meal recipients, 7 million WIC recipients, and millions of other beneficiaries of USDA food programs when these federal programs start running out of money should the shutdown go on for the “months,” much less “years,” the President has said he is willing to tolerate.”