HYANNIS – Two federal judges ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump’s administration must continue to fund the SNAP food aid program using emergency reserve funds during the government shutdown.
The rulings came a day before the payments were due to be halted.
SNAP is used by one in eight Americans to buy groceries and is a major piece of the nation’s social safety net.
The Lower Cape Outreach Council says currently, one in three Cape Codders are food insecure. They are seeking donations for their seasonal campaign to fund the agency’s operations of nine food pantries on the Lower and Outer Cape.
The council says demand for food assistance continues to climb, while trusted programs like SNAP and WIC face ongoing threats.
This weekend on Sunday Journal, Family Pantry of Cape Cod executive director Paul Lonergan spoke confidently about being able to serve their clients.
“I believe that we are very well-positioned in product quantity, our position to purchase the product. We have an amazing donor base that is extremely generous, and they support us. For folks that don’t know, we’re 100-percent privately funded through donations,” said Lonergan.
He continued, “The impact a government cut would have on us is to the Greater Boston Food Bank. So, they’re moving quickly on their feet.”
Governor Maura Healey reacted by saying, “This ruling confirms what we have known all along – Donald Trump has the funds to continue paying SNAP benefits, but he has been choosing to force millions of Americans to go hungry. I’m grateful to Attorney General Campbell and her colleagues for taking the President to court and securing this ruling, and I continue to urge him to immediately restore full benefits as soon as possible. We will provide additional guidance to Massachusetts SNAP recipients as it becomes available.”
Barnstable County’s Cape Cod Cooperative Extension has launched a new online resource to support residents navigating the recent federal aid changes. To visit the page, click here.
Material from The Associated Press was used for this story.
By Jim McCabe, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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