Butler County food pantries prepare for potential SNAP stoppage
More than 100 new registrants showed up to Christ's Family Church’s Manna from Heaven distribution on Saturday, Oct. 18, in Chicora.
The surprise turnout came just one day after the Pennsylvania Department of Human Services announced that Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits from November onward are not expected to be paid out during the federal government shutdown.
“They were concerned that due to the government shutdown that they will be losing their SNAP benefits starting in November,” said the Rev. John Pistorius of Christ’s Family Church. “It was a fear reaction. We haven’t had this many since 2021.”
According to DHS, 14,460 people in Butler County receive SNAP benefits, amounting to $3,077,410 in spending — an average of $212.82 per recipient. On a statewide level, Pennsylvania receives more than $366 million to provide benefits to nearly 2 million residents.
Until fund disbursement resumes, the department recommends Pennsylvanians in need use www.pa-navigate.org or www.feedingpa.org to find food and other resources. Local help is also available by calling 211 or by going to www.pa211.org.
“The USDA has stated there is not enough available funding for November SNAP benefits without further action from the federal government,” the department said in a statement on Monday. “The commonwealth cannot backfill these costs so SNAP benefits are on hold until a federal budget is passed. Congress has the ability to prevent the harm this will cause to Pennsylvania families and small businesses.”
The department encouraged those able to assist local organizations to support them through continued high demand.
The Lighthouse Foundation, a Christian outreach nonprofit that serves impoverished people and families, is no stranger to seeing drastic shifts in clients. Joe Franciscus, the agency’s food pantry director, said it started using the mantra “adapt and adjust” in 2020, when many people lost their jobs in the COVID-19 pandemic, bringing more people to the Lighthouse Foundation.
He said the pause of SNAP benefits will probably lead more people to come to the Middlesex Township pantry, but it mainly means the Lighthouse Foundation staff will be a little busier.
“We are focusing on what we do have. We’re still getting food and product,” Franciscus said. “What it is going to bring is a busier food pantry, but we are doing the best we can every day.”
The pantry does not have income requirements, nor will its staff turn anyone away, Franciscus said, but individuals can only receive food from the pantry twice a month and the amount of food they can get is based on the size of a person’s household.
Still, the pantry serves an average of 70 to 80 people each day it is open — Monday through Thursday — for a total of about 250 people per week — from Butler County and the northern portion of Allegheny County.
With high demand on Saturday, Pistorius said volunteers were able to make sure the extra registrants were fed, but they were not able to supply every person with every item.
He said he was pleasantly surprised at the ability to help that many people, but anxious about what’s ahead.
He cannot guarantee they will have the same supply next time, as Manna From Heaven does not receive its food supply from a provider.
“We glean food from a variety of sources. For Saturday, we had three sources,” he said.
He said because of the uncertainty of donations and a high demand for food to distribute, each distribution is a “feast or famine.”
Pistorius also volunteers for Petroleum Valley Food Cupboard, a nonprofit serving the northeast section of the county. While they are appointment-only and did not receive a significant uptick at their last distribution, he wonders what will happen at the next one.
Regardless of whether the influx of new people is a continued trend or will dissipate quickly, Pistorius said Manna from Heaven and Petroleum Valley Food Cupboard will continue to give all it can to feed as many mouths as possible.
“We have no paid staff, so we have no overhead and everything that is donated to us is used,” he said. “We have a generous group of donors, like Professional Enterprises, who provide much of the equipment we need to keep running.”
Franciscus said that in addition to the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank, the Lighthouse Foundation gets donations of money and food and it has a base of volunteers who help run the pantry the four days a week it is open.
“On a given day, the morning shift helps stock up the pantry and then we have volunteers help run the shop,” Franciscus said. “We have 20 volunteers every day.”
The Pittsburgh food bank released its own statement regarding the recent announcement and said it is closely monitoring and planning for a surge in demand for food resources.
“SNAP is our nation’s first line of defense against hunger. It provides critical support to families in need and, without it, the charitable food network simply cannot meet the scale of demand on its own,” the food bank said.
Franciscus said the food pantry has navigated client increases before, which is also thanks to donations of money and food. Donations of food are even more appreciated than monetary donations, he said.
The pantry is set up like a grocery store. Clients get to walk around with a shopping cart and pick items for themselves, which Franciscus said helps make the process of getting food from the foundation more personal and even normalized.
He added that he and the staff of the pantry want to help get rid of the stigma around getting help from a nonprofit and the supermarket-style format of the Lighthouse Foundation helps with that.
“They get to go around and choose their items. We give them that choice, that option,” Franciscus said. “Someone said last week that it gives them a sense of dignity.”
