Connecticut Foodshare, a life-saving backstop for those who don’t know where their next meal is coming from, says need for its services is growing—even as federal resources needed to do the job are becoming scarce.
“The need is going up and the amount of food we’ve been given to distribute has gone down,” says the nonprofit agency’s CEO, Jason Jakubowski.
Feeding America, with its latest Map the Meal Gap report, confirms the widening hunger crisis, reporting that more than 516,000 people in Connecticut are food insecure. That’s the latest number available, from 2023. It’s a ten percent increase from 2022. 1 in 6 children in the state and 1 in 12 seniors are food insecure.
“The numbers, unfortunately, reflect what we see and hear every single day at our lines and at the 600 pantries that we serve across the entire state of Connecticut,” says Jakubowski. “We’ve been hearing for months from the people running those pantries: that the lines are as long as they’ve ever been.”
Given the current circumstances in Washington, Jakubowski is not expecting the government to rally the needed resources to help. In March, Connecticut lost millions of dollars in Congressionally-approved, federally-funded food deliveries, along with funding for the Local Food for Schools program and the Local Food Purchase Assistance program. They were all cut as DOGE swept through the federal government, claiming to target “waste, fraud and abuse.”
Now, the Republican budget bill being considered in Congress would make cuts to programs including food stamps, or SNAP, inevitably leaving more people in need of services.
“There are major, major cuts to SNAP, Medicaid and TEFAP (USDA’S Emergency Food Assistance Program),” adds Jakubowski. “That is a perfect storm for food banks and for food pantries across the country. I don’t know what we’re going to do when the number of people needing food is going to go up, and the resources we have to provide them with food will go down.”
He is certain that Connecticut Foodshare will be relying on more donations. You can give at ctfoodshare.org.