For Anthony DeSousa, who owns two pizza shops in Estes Park and Longmont, Colorado, feeding the hungry is deeply personal. Having grown up in poverty in New York, with his father in jail and his mother raising three boys alone, DeSousa knows what it means to go without.
“I know what it’s like to be a kid and starving, to check every cabinet in the house 15 times looking for food and never finding any,” he told Reuters.
Since early November, DeSousa has given away about 300 pizzas, hundreds of chicken and pasta dinners, and more than 600 pounds of beans and rice to those showing Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit cards or federal worker IDs during the record-long federal government shutdown, Reuters reported.
His efforts are part of a broader surge in community generosity this month, as millions of low-income Americans face disruptions to SNAP, also known as food stamps amid a political and legal stalemate in Washington.
The US Supreme Court on Tuesday allowed the Trump administration, for now, to continue withholding roughly $4 billion in SNAP funds, with the extended pause set to expire Thursday. Meanwhile, the Senate on Monday advanced a funding bill that would both end the shutdown and fully restore SNAP payments.
The House is expected to take up the measure as soon as Wednesday.
While lawmakers debate, nearly 42 million Americans who rely on food stamps have been left anxious and uncertain — some even skipping medication to stretch their budgets.
Across the country, food banks and local businesses are filling the gap.
Many pantries have reported donation surges as communities rally to feed neighbors hit hardest by the lapse in federal aid.
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, more than a dozen restaurants and coffee shops are offering free meals to children affected by the SNAP delay. Among them is The Burrow Cafe, co-owned by Billy Nguyen, who has served 15 to 20 free kids’ meals a day.
Nguyen, who came to the United States as a refugee from central Vietnam, said his own family once depended on food stamps. His wife, Amanda Nguyen, 35, also relied on SNAP when she was a single mother.
“She knows what it’s like to go hungry,” he said. “Feeding kids is not political.”
Some states like Massachusetts issued full benefits to SNAP recipients last Friday after the USDA told states it was working toward complying with a court order that the administration fully fund November benefits.
Others like North Carolina started issuing benefits on Friday but stopped when a Supreme Court order later that day allowed a lower court more time to consider the administration's appeal aimed at issuing less food aid.
The administration has said it would only partially fund SNAP benefits during the shutdown because it said the funds required to make up the difference were earmarked for other nutrition programs.
SNAP benefits cost about $8 billion to 9 billion each month.