As a steady trickle of cars pulled into a gravel roundabout one morning in Stockport, a tiny village in southeast Ohio, volunteers loaded cardboard boxes into truck beds and passenger seats.
They were filled with pantry staples: apple juice, corn flakes, kidney beans and elbow macaroni.
“We try to provide a three-day supply of food,” said Stefanie Thompson, the executive director of Morgan County United Ministries, which runs this mobile food pantry. “But it's tight, especially if you have more than two or three members of your household.”
Recently, it’s become even tighter.
Because of federal funding cuts, Thompson’s organization isn’t able to get as many groceries from the local food bank.
“These boxes are about five items lighter than what we had typically been doing,” she said — a small difference, but noticeable for people struggling to put food on the dinner table.
Federal cuts to food assistance
In March, food banks across Ohio reported shipments of federally funded food were abruptly cancelled, after the Trump administration cut hundreds of millions of dollars from food assistance programs.
“So we lost about 163,000 pounds of food,” said Eva Bloom, director of development for Hocking Athens Perry Community Action, which operates the SE Ohio Foodbank.
“What was showing as coming to us through our online ordering system was then status as a return and then status as canceled,” she said. “So that's a reduction in food that we were prepared to deliver to our neighbors facing hunger.”
Specifically, the Trump administration cut $500 million from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which gives low-income people emergency food at no cost.
The administration also canceled two COVID-era programs that gave schools and food banks money to buy produce from local farms: the Local Food for Schools Cooperative Agreement Program (LFS) and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA).
In an email, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture said the federal government continues to provide a lot of money for local food purchasing and nutrition programs.
“From the start of the FY through February 2025, the Department has spent nearly $780 million on TEFAP (the Emergency Food Assistance Program]) foods and administrative expenses, which is not unusual in a five-month period,” the statement said.
“Not to mention, as of Wednesday (May 14), States have more than $246 million in local purchasing authority that is specific to the charitable feeding network. Finally, on any given day, the Department issues more than $405 million worth of nutrition benefits across its 16 nutrition programs. There is no need for new programs, but perhaps more efficient and effective use of current.”
The impact of federal cuts
As things stand now, Stefanie Thompson has cut back from giving Morgan County pantry visitors two selections of frozen meat to just one.
Starting in July, she won’t be able to offer as much fresh produce either. The program she relied on to get those veggies is one that was cut.
“So our box is going to continue to shrink,” she said.
And unlike in some urban areas, the SE Ohio Foodbank can’t count on donations to supplement what’s been lost.
“We have fewer grocery stores and we have fewer manufacturing partners in this region, so we're very reliant on the state and the federal commodities,” Bloom said. “Between 10% and 15% of our food is donated, whereas a food bank that's located in an urban area — even if they serve rural counties as well — it's closer to 40%. So it's a huge difference in terms of the amount of donated food that we get in.”
She worries for people in Morgan County, which has a food insecurity rate of 17.5%, higher than the state average of 14.1%. These days, nearly 500 people there visit the mobile food pantry every month.
“And that number has continued to increase,” Thompson said. “Every month we're seeing a few more families come in.”
Rising demand for food assistance
That’s a trend pantries all over the state are noticing, said Joree Novotny, executive director of the Ohio Association of Food Banks. Last quarter, the network provided groceries for more than 3.5 million food pantry visitors.
“That's well beyond what historically we would have ever expected,” Novotny said. “Before a couple of years ago, we had never exceeded 3million food pantry visits in any one quarter. Now that's become a very regular occurrence.
“I sure hope that it doesn't go up anymore, because I'm not sure that we could sustain more response. We're at the point where all we would do is reduce access to services and reduce the food that we're supplying.”
But Novotny worries the number will go up, especially if the U.S. Senate moves forward with the House’s version of the ‘Big Beautiful Bill.’
The package passed by House Republicans would cut almost $300 billion to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) over the next decade.
"One experience with hunger is one experience too many. So I don't take lightly that less access to food in our system might mean more likelihood that a child or a parent or a caregiver or a senior goes without the food they need. And that has ripple effects. Hunger is not helpful to any community."Joree Novotny, Ohio Association of Food Banks
It raises the working age requirements for people to receive SNAP benefits, so they would have to work into their 60s instead of their 50s to receive that food assistance. It also offers fewer work exemptions for people with kids.
And it puts more of the onus to fund SNAP on states. Novotny said the program as it is now would be impossible to sustain.
“To be perfectly frank, it remains to be seen to what extent SNAP will exist for the folks that can count on SNAP right now in Ohio and across the country,” she said.
If that happens, food pantries like the one in Morgan County would likely be left serving even more people with less federal funds.
For people like Jeanne Long, who pulled into line to pick up a box of pantry staples, that could make a difference. She comes to Morgan County’s mobile pantry every month and is already noticing the impact of a lighter load.
“I just have to use the money to buy it elsewhere,” she said. “It does make it a little harder.”
