Madison Shtur lined the shelves of her pay-what-you-can thrift store in Jeannette on Thursday, Oct. 30 with the latest shipment of groceries from the Westmoreland Food Bank.

It wasn’t enough.

A shipment from the food bank typically lasts about three weeks on Shtur’s shelves. But last week’s shipment lasted just two days, she said, as local families anticipated the loss of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

The benefits were halted Saturday for the first time since the program’s inception in 1964 amid the federal government shutdown.

Shtur’s Free-Op Community Store, which opened along Clay Avenue nearly two years ago, is one of the food bank’s emergency pantry sites — offering nonperishable food, frozen meats and sometimes fresh produce to help community members between monthly distributions and federal benefits.

The food flying off the shelves at such a rapid pace was a first for Shtur.

“I have never seen anything like that,” she said. “The number of families and the number of members of the household that came in just those two days at the end of October has been crazy — just really shocking.”

Contrary to the slow, steady flow of shoppers that usually filters through the store, customers last week arrived to pick through the food shelves within the store’s first hour, Shtur said.

“I think that everyone is just anticipating the struggle that they’re going to have and maybe trying to plan ahead and trying to stock their shelves at home more than they would normally have to worry about,” she said. “Because the uncertainty is really scary.”

Caitlyn Boland, director of Oakmont Carnegie Library, was overwhelmed with the positive response when she announced the library would be hosting a pop-up food pantry for folks affected by SNAP cuts.

The pantry opened for shoppers Monday morning. Boland said a couple of shoppers stopped in throughout the day and picked up what they needed.

“It’s amazing to see people come in and benefit from (the pantry),” Boland said. “We’re just so happy to be in the spot to help people.”

The library became the site of the pop-up pantry after local businesses reached out last week to see if the library could hold donations.

Collecting donations since Thursday, Boland said, the pantry quickly was filled with various food items. They briefly paused donations while trying to find a home for everything.

“We have a lot of food available to the community,” she said.

The library asked for canned goods, boxed pasta, rice, cereal, oatmeal, plastic jars of peanut butter and jelly, snack items, baby food and formula.

“As a public library, we are here to help people,” Boland said. “Libraries are for everybody. In whatever context that means for each individual person, libraries are here for you.”

It has not been determined how long the pop-up will remain at the library, Boland said.

Faith Forward Ministries typically supplies emergency groceries to 18 to 25 households each month. But last week alone, the Latrobe-based nonprofit received eight to 10 calls seeking food, said executive director Dawn Hennessey.

“Even when there were just rumors that this was going to be happening, we started getting calls,” she said.

To complement Faith Forward’s food bank-sponsored emergency grocery program, Hennessey — a therapist — is forming a support group at the nonprofit’s Latrobe and Blairsville locations to help families struggling emotionally in the absence of federal nutrition benefits.

“I was a single mom one time and had three babies, and I had assistance at one point in my life,” she said. “This would’ve been a crisis for me. …

“I think we need to all pull together as human services programs, and we need to see how we can assist these families to get them through this in a positive way.”

Despite the influx in demand for food support, Shtur is encouraged by how the community has stepped up to help neighbors.

“It’s easy to get disheartened and to get frustrated with all of the types of situations that we deal with regularly,” she said. “To see the general public caring — when it’s something that might not even be affecting them directly, but they just care about their neighbors — that’s really what it’s all about.”

Local, state leaders call for action

State and Allegheny County officials called for immediate federal action Monday to restore SNAP benefits. “These benefits are the first line of defense against hunger in our country, and we should all be saddened and angry that these benefits have not been delivered as expected,” said Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank CEO Lisa Scales.

She said the news of the lapse in SNAP benefits caused a consistent surge in the demand at the food bank’s on-site food pantry, direct distributions and throughout the food bank’s food pantry locations. Scales said the food bank changed its distribution method to serve more people faster since lines were so long last week.

Demand has doubled at the food bank’s on-site pantry from about 150 people a day to 300 a day, she said.

The food bank is reaching out to federal workers — including at the airport, the local FBI offices and the U.S. district court — to offer support to employees who are missing paychecks during the shutdown. Allegheny County is home to about 15,000 federal workers, she said.

The Westmoreland Food Bank typically supports 15,000 households at any given time. But with more than 46,000 residents missing the federal food assistance they normally rely on, the food bank is seeing an increase in demand, said CEO Jennifer Miller.

The food bank’s call volume has doubled in the past two weeks, flooded by local families requesting grocery assistance, Miller said. The nonprofit averages 158 referrals to its programs per month between January and September. October alone saw 327, Miller said.

Although donations are up, the increase in community support is not enough to make up for the loss of federal benefits, Miller said.

“We always average between a five- and 10-day supply that we give out,” she said, “because we were always (meant) to be supplemental to the federal nutrition programs.”

The Trump administration announced Monday that about half of SNAP funding would be reinstated in response to a court order requiring the program’s reinstatement.

Last week, Gov. Josh Shapiro released $5 million in state funding to Feeding Pennsylvania to distribute to its network of food banks across the state and signed a disaster declaration to expedite the delivery of the funds.

Scales was joined by Lt. Gov. Austin Davis, state Agriculture Secretary Russell Redding, state Department of Human Services Special Assistant Stephanie Meyer, state Rep. Emily Kinkead (D-Brighton Heights), and Allegheny County Executive Sara Innamorato on Monday morning to speak about the importance of these benefits and to highlight Pennsylvania’s action to stock food banks across the state.

Scales said Feeding Pennsylvania has a formula that will determine allocations across the state. She said the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank will receive just over $800,000.

The Shapiro-Davis administration also has raised $1 million from private funding from groups and residents to help contribute to those efforts, Davis said.

Scales said that while this emergency funding will help supply more food, there should still be concern about the enormous gap caused by the lapse.

“For every meal a food bank provides, SNAP provides nine,” Scales said.

State efforts

On Friday, two federal judges ruled in Pennsylvania’s favor after the governor joined 24 other states and the District of Columbia in suing the Trump administration for unlawfully suspending SNAP payments, Davis said.

The judge ruled that the USDA must use billions of dollars in congressionally approved contingency funds to continue funding SNAP during the shutdown and ensure 42 million Americans — including nearly 2 million Pennsylvanians — are fed. Of those 2 million people, 160,000 are Allegheny County residents, according to Innamorato.

Those 2 million Pennsylvania residents fall into a variety of demographics.

“The vast majority of people who receive SNAP benefits (are) adults working,” Kinkead said. “Those who are not working are not working because they have disabilities or they’re elderly. Then there’s one in six children who experience food insecurity.”

In the midst of a DHS briefing call Monday afternoon, news broke that the federal government would release a contingency fund to partially pay for SNAP benefits in November. Officials said the amount represented about 55% of what is needed to pay full benefits.

Officials were uncertain how long it might take for that money to be released and become available for SNAP users.

“It should not have taken a lawsuit and a court order to unlock the contingency funds,” Scales said. “But it’s still not nearly what people need. People can only buy half as much as they normally would. Families are making impossible choices. Parents are skipping meals. They’re stretching. They’re doing without.”

Assuming recipients receive about half of their usual benefits, she said, people still will not be able to make ends meet.

“That burden on families is not going away, even with these partial payments,” she said.

Though the county is not responsible for funding programs like SNAP and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, Innamorato said county officials — along with hundreds of private partners who joined the virtual briefing — are compelled to step up amid a federal government shutdown, a state budget impasse and delays in critical assistance programs.

“It does become our collective problem when our neighbors go without food, heat or a paycheck,” she said.

LIHEAP delays

About 300,000 households throughout the commonwealth, Innamorato said, rely on LIHEAP, a federally funded program that helps people pay their energy bills.

Duquesne Light is putting protections on low-income people’s accounts to ensure they don’t see services terminated this month if they can’t pay bills, said Andréa Stanford, general manager of universal services and energy efficiency.

The utility offers various assistance plans to help people who might be facing what she dubbed a “heat-or-eat dilemma,” where people have to choose which essentials to pay for.

Carmen Malloy, manager of community assistance programs at Peoples Gas, said a variety of customer service options are available for Peoples customers, too.

She urged anyone struggling to pay their utility bills to reach out to the company.

“If we don’t know, we cannot help you,” she said.

Dollar Energy Fund has seen a 30% jump in the number of calls for help statewide since last year, said chief operating officer Alan Michel.

“The need for utility assistance is real,” he said.

But Dollar Energy Fund cannot replace the $15 million to $20 million per year, he said, that people throughout the commonwealth receive from LIHEAP.

“We simply cannot bridge that gap completely,” he said.

An annual statewide utility shutoff moratorium goes into effect in December.

Looking ahead

According to Allegheny County Department of Human Services Director Erin Dalton, rising food costs exacerbate the challenges SNAP recipients face even with partial payments.

And the contingency fund only provides support through November.

“If the federal shutdown goes longer, this is a one-and-done if there’s not going to be other resources used,” Dalton said.

“It’s not enough,” Scales added.

During Monday morning’s press conference, Scales said the food bank’s executive team meets on a regular basis to keep track of the amount of food available for the public. She said they’re continuing to purchase food, and relying on area farms and produce markets across the state to continue distribution.

“We call on Congress to ensure SNAP benefits are paid in full as soon as possible and reopen the government to restore stability for families, federal employees and all Americans,” Scales said.

Davis called the lapse in SNAP payments a “manmade crisis.” He said SNAP recipients receive more than $360 million per month in Pennsylvania.

Many of those recipients are in rural areas, such as Tioga, Forest and Wayne counties, Kinkead said.

“There are more food-insecure people per capita in those areas than there are in places like Pittsburgh and Philadelphia,” she said. “Making sure that we are able to support the food banks that support those people is essential.”

Redding emphasized the importance of maintaining a charitable food system.

“I believe what (the food bank) really delivers are moments of relief and dignity and hope,” Redding said.

He said programs like SNAP are also an integral part of maintaining a healthy economy in the country.

“Food security is economic security,” Redding said. “It’s part of the untold story of SNAP. It was built very intentionally to link both the production capacity in our nation and those who are at risk of hunger.”

Bobbi Watt Geer, president and CEO of United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, said 211 — a program that connects residents with community resources including food, housing and utility assistance — has been seeing a massive spike in people who need help.

From October 2024 to October this year, the organization recorded a 187% increase in people seeking food-related assistance. Last week alone, they fielded 658 requests for food help, up 9% from the week prior. About 34% of callers last week reported they needed help because of the federal shutdown.

“Food is really a top concern,” Watt Geer said, stressing that there has been an increased need since the pandemic but an extra spike since the announcement that SNAP would be halted.

Meyer said if a SNAP recipient has leftover SNAP benefits on their EBT card, those funds are still available to them and are able to be used. Recipients also must still complete renewal requests and report changes in household or income to DHS, despite the federal shutdown.

DHS is also still accepting and processing applications for SNAP benefits. Recipients can access the new work requirements passed by Congress at dhs.pa.gov/work.

“In America, the wealthiest, greatest country on Earth, we should be able to help people,” Davis said. “We should not live in a society where people go hungry.”

Haley Daugherty, Julia Burdelski and Quincey Reese are TribLive staff writers. Haley can be reached at hdaugherty@triblive.com, Julia at jburdelski@triblive.com and Quincey at qreese@triblive.com.

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