Food banks, pantries say federal funding cut harms the hungry

By Barb Arland-Fye
The Catholic Messenger

Working families, senior citizens and individuals with disabilities who depend on food pantries will suffer because of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s cancellation of $500 million nationwide from an emergency food assistance program, Iowa hunger-fighting leaders say.

The Iowa Hunger Coalition condemned the USDA’s “recent decision to cancel $500 million in funding for The Emer­gency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP).” In their March 21 statement, the coalition’s members called on the USDA “to immediately restore these food orders” and for Iowa’s elected officials “to advocate with USDA to reverse this disastrous decision.”

“… In Iowa, this will eliminate an estimated $3.8 million worth of food for food banks, food pantries, and the people they serve. Dozens of truckloads of meat, milk, cheese, and vegetables have been cancelled,” Luke Elzinga, board chair of the Iowa Hunger Coalition (IHC), said in the statement.

“We expect to see a 7% reduction in food received through government food commodities,” said Chris Ford, president and CEO of River Bend Food Bank, which serves Muscatine Scott, Clinton, Jackson and Dubuque counties in Iowa and 18 counties in Illinois. “The value of that food nears $650,000 and we would need to increase our own purchased food budget by 25% to make up for this loss. In short, this means less nutritious food like meat, milk, vegetables, and fruit for people experiencing hunger,” Ford said in a March 21 statement on behalf of River Bend Food Bank. “Typically, the food commodities we receive from the government are very nutritious foods, like ground beef, turkey, milk, fresh vegetables and fruit, and eggs,” Ford told The Messenger.

River Bend Food Bank is also concerned about “proposed cuts to SNAP that would also impact both our bottom line and the people we serve. Because those cuts have not yet taken effect, it’s difficult to quantify the exact economic impact,” Ford said. However, the proposed $230 billion federal funding cut (implemented over a 10-year-period) would affect food access for the more than “2 million people in Iowa and Illinois that rely on SNAP benefits,” he added. “In both states, more than 60% of SNAP participants are families with children, and more than a third of the households are families with older adults or those (who are) disabled.”

The existing and proposed food funding cuts at the federal and state level come at a time when more people in Iowa are turning to food pantries and food banks for assistance, said Elzinga and several representatives of hunger-fighting organizations in Iowa.

Local impact

“We’re seeing people we’ve never seen before; people who have never had to ask for help before,” said Regan Michaelsen, executive director of Infor­mation, Referral & Assis­tance Services (IRAS) in Clinton. Just a few years ago, the nonprofit provided 40 food boxes a month to individuals and families, now it is 40 boxes a day.

Many clients who get food boxes at IRAS are working, Michaelsen said. Other clients are elderly or have disabilities. All of them struggle to afford the higher costs for food, rent and other necessities. “Income isn’t increasing, but everything else is,” she said.

Food funding cuts at any level will affect the IRAS budget because the agency relies in part on low-cost food donations available through River Bend Food Bank. With limited and sometimes hard to find items such as cereal, peanut butter and tuna, IRAS needs to purchase some items locally, at a higher cost, Michaelsen said, reducing the capacity to respond to need.

“We had 160 people here today (March 21),” said John Cooper, who oversees McAnthony Window, a ministry of St. Anthony Parish in downtown Davenport. Many of those patrons picked up items at the food pantry window to take home.

Ripple effect

McAnthony Window depends on River Bend Food Bank for 99% of its low-cost food products (a small portion comes from Midwest Food Bank Illinois-Peoria). Around 25% of the total comes from the TEFAP food commodity program. “Anything that impacts River Bend Food Bank will impact us,” said Cooper, who serves as pastoral associate and business manager for St. Anthony Parish. “We’re spending $100,000 a year on food, which allows us to feed a large number of people” (with funding the parish receives through grants, private donations and its fundraising events).

“We’re still getting large numbers of people every day,” regardless of the weather. “It shows how much they really need this,” Cooper said. Many people think, mistakenly, that McAnthony Window only serves people who are homeless. “Through the food pantry, we’re feeding a lot of people who are trying to keep themselves from being homeless. That’s the thing people don’t realize; if you have to spend more money on food, you get behind on utilities and rent … and then you’re homeless.”

John Boller, executive director of the Coralville Community Food Pantry, described the TEFAP cancellation as “yet another debilitating blow to food pantries, food banks, farmers and, most importantly, families struggling to afford food.” The Coralville pantry, like most, relies “heavily on commodity food to keep our shelves and coolers stocked with nutrient-dense choices for our neighbors. In 2024, TEFAP provided a quarter of the food we distributed. Take away TEFAP and there’s no Coralville Community Food Pantry.”

Lawrence DuCharme, president of St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry, the largest food pantry in Burlington, receives 70% of its food from Food Bank of Iowa and serves more than 600 families a month. “In the short term, we’ll be OK,” said DuCharme, a member of Divine Mercy Parish-Burlington/West Burlington. However, “The funding gave us the ability to have more available for clients.” The food pantry’s costs will increase if the food bank is not able to purchase as much as they currently do, DuCharme added. “We’ll definitely be purchasing more things locally (at greater cost) and we’ll definitely concentrate on what we consider staples.”