Jennifer Hopkins used to see it as a fun challenge to turn unclaimed food from the HOME, Inc. pantry in Orland into creative meals for her family and neighbors. Now, with the future of the federal food benefits she relies on uncertain, she feels it’s a necessity.
Hopkins lives in Bucksport with her partner and 9-year-old son, who has a seizure disorder. Along with standing to lose their food benefits, her partner just lost his job and her seasonal work cleaning vacation homes on Mount Desert Island is slowing down.
They’re used to living frugally, according to Hopkins, but now have to make more cuts. As federal officials continue to wrangle over food assistance programs during the ongoing government shutdown, it’s not clear when its funding will be fully restored.
“That’s a scary place to be, especially when you have children,” she said.
As the federal government shutdown has entered its second month and funding for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits have been put on hold, food pantry operators in eastern and northern Maine heard anxiety from the people they serve and uncertainty about what’s ahead. That’s compounded by the approaching holiday season and federal delays to Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program heating aid.
“It comes down to a general sense of anxiety,” said Rosa Moore, executive director of HOME. “People are questioning … how am I supposed to pay for everything?”
Because of the shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture warned states two weeks ago not to expect SNAP funding in November. Two judges ruled then late last week that the Trump administration had to fund the program, and on Monday the administration announced that it would provide about half the program’s budget this month.
At the Mi’kmaq Nation’s food pantry in Presque Isle, which is open to members of the tribe and the general public, employees said they have been “busier than usual” in recent weeks. They anticipated that demand would further increase toward the middle of the month, when SNAP benefits are typically loaded onto Electronic Benefits Transfer cards.
“That will be the real trial by fire,” Kandi Sock, Mi’kmaq community resource and outreach program administrator, said Monday before the additional funding was announced.
About 80% of Aroostook County’s Mi’kmaq population uses SNAP benefits, according to Sock. The Presque Isle food pantry has served around 40 people per month in recent months.
“My community members are telling me that they don’t know what they’re going to do if they don’t get food stamps,” Sock said. “Simple things like, ‘how am I going to feed my children for the next month and what bills am I not going to be able to pay?’”
The tribe also provides heating assistance through the federally-funded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program, which helps reduce the costs of home energy bills.
Funding for the heating program and the over $40 million it typically directs into the state has likely been delayed until at least December, leaving Mi’kmaq leadership to pull from several emergency funds to provide support as winter looms.
“We need heat right now. It’s cold,” Sock said. “It’s not money that’s going to last a very long time. The tribal council, our governing body, is looking at ways that they can support people in a longer term fashion.”
In Orland, HOME has given out 10 cords of wood for heat already this year, almost half of what it distributes in a typical season.
The Black Bear Exchange, the food pantry on UMaine’s Orono campus, is open to active students, staff and faculty and their immediate families. It served 175 people a week in September, a large increase from last September, Lisa Morin, coordinator of the Bodwell Center for Service and Volunteerism, said. Just last week, 28 new UMaine community members got food at the exchange, she said.
The increase has been noticeable within the last month because people don’t know if their benefits will be available in the near future, according to Morin.
“People that are food insecure, generally by the first of the month, they’ll say, ‘Well, I can do without this, because I know I’ll get my benefits, and then I can go refill it.’ And now there’s that panic of, ‘I’m running out of this and no benefits are coming in,’” Morin said.
Conversations about donations have increased, but donations themselves have not, according to Morin. That could threaten the pantry’s operations.
“I mean, it’s our plan to be able to take care of everyone that comes in. But you know, if the money and resources aren’t available to us to be able to provide what we need to, then there will come a time where we have to start making choices,” she said.
About 160 households went through HOME’s food pantry in October, 35 of them new visitors, according to Shannon Carpenter, the organization’s finance director.
Moore said the overall increase has been slight, but noted HOME is getting more requests to join food programs from a new demographic: people who previously made ends meet with SNAP. Five working families who send their children to the center’s daycare are in a position to have to choose between paying for food or childcare, she said.
The pantry already was trying to stretch available food after cuts to the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program, its largest supplier. Ahead of Thanksgiving, Moore is trying to source 250 turkeys on top of responding to these other changes.
But so far, she’s encouraged by how communities and businesses have come together to donate and help out. Hopkins, the mother from Bucksport, is encouraged too and hopes the SNAP uncertainty will lead people to live more collectively.
Another food rescue line visitor in Orland, who declined to give his name, said he’s come there a few times a week for about five years to help with his grocery bill. He isn’t on SNAP, but his disabled brother depends on it.
“People are going to have to make hard decisions, I guess,” he said.
BDN writers Cameron Levasseur and Kasey Turman contributed reporting.
