An Update on the SNAP Crisis & How YOU Can Help!
Posted by South Philly Food Co-op · November 09, 2025 4:16 PM
The SNAP crisis continues to bear down and we're reaching out with an update and an appeal for additional support today.
SNAP benefits were abruptly cut off November 1st as part of the government shutdown. The case will now go before the Supreme Court which may or may not end this crisis.
Meanwhile, 2 million Pennsylvanians struggle to access their next meal.
|
|
|
|
Here at the Co-op we believe that everyone should have access to healthful food. We have been fielding countless calls about where folks can to turn for free food.
It's hard knowing our neighbors are suffering, that's why we sprung into action to raise money and leverage both our purchasing power and community partnerships to feed our neighbors.
We are thankful that over 300 friends of the co-op have heeded the call. Together we have raised $8.5k for hunger relief so far this month. That's enough to get about 2 tons of food, or an estimated 4,000 meals out to our community!
|
|
We're not stopping there! Our goal is to raise $14k by Wednesday, November 19th which will allow us to distribute a total of about 4 tons of food ahead of the Thanksgiving Holiday.
We are talking about delivering immediate relief. The co-op is dispatching 3 or more, very large donations each week. As you donate we activate our process to order, coordinate, and dispatch goods to our neighbors through our community partners.
With your financial support we have capacity to distribute 24 hunger relief boxes or 60 cases of free food each major delivery day.
|
|
We get 3 UNFI deliveries so that's 180 cases of food each week. We can distribute 3 times this week and 2 times next week before we have to focus our efforts on Thanksgiving.
We will also be providing a sizeable Thanksgiving Donation provided we get the funding. The time to give is now.
|
|
If you don't need assistance we encourage you to do what you can. Together we can make a huge difference.
Help us raise $5.5k by Wednesday, November 19th!
|
|
Thus far this solution has proven to be the most practical, efficient, and impactful way to get the tons of food out there right away and on an ongoing basis.
We have explored a few other options but encountered many hurdles as most other ideas didn't get nearly as much food into the community for the cost, and many ideas explored came with extra overhead and administrative burdens, some ideas would even run afoul with technical difficulties and legal nuances and so this is our main strategy at this point.
|
|
We have one other strategy we are pursuing:
We are applying for a $50k grant from the city to fund 500 low income community members at $100 each on a virtual account that they'd be able to use to purchase groceries at our store.
We will keep you posted if the grant is approved and how those in need may request aid.
If it's not funded and the SNAP crisis persists, we'll return to our fundraising/ distribution efforts and further explore other ways we might be able to assist after the holiday.
Again thanks to everyone for your support. Together we are doing a beautiful thing to help our neighbors during this difficult time.
|
