SNAP crisis brought back memories, prompted action

One of my most vivid childhood memories is of a simple act of kindness by one of my mother’s good friends. I was 11 years old, and it was the late 1970s. My mother was a single parent to two teenagers. Money was tight and she was doing her best to navigate the circumstances. The November 2025 government shutdown, which temporarily disrupted food assistance for millions of Americans, brought back some of those difficult memories.

That afternoon, my mother’s friend left several bags of groceries on our dining table. I could read the deep sense of gratitude and relief on her face. The job market was challenging, especially for a single parent. My mother did her best, stringing together jobs to support us. She worked the overnight shift for minimum wage at a convenience store. She loaded packages on UPS trucks, also overnight hours. She didn’t like leaving us on our own, but it was the only way to earn some money and be there for us during the day and evenings.

Her story will sound familiar to anyone in the 38% of the regional population who fall within United Way’s Asset Limited, Income Constrained and Employed (ALICE) threshold. ALICE refers to people who, despite working full-time, are unable to make ends meet. Despite working multiple jobs, my mother had difficulty earning enough for groceries and our other bills. I never recall being hungry, but we ate a lot of mac and cheese and SPAM.

About 300,000 households in our five-county service area experienced a freeze in SNAP benefits in November, the first time in history that this benefit was halted. We saw food-related contacts to our 211 help center increase 210% this November over last.

At that time, we used what was then called “food stamps,” now known as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), which launched in the 1960s to help lower-income wage earners access food and also to support the agricultural economy.

We lived in a small town. It was awkward to have to use food stamps. Running into friends and neighbors in the store was inevitable and uncomfortable. At school, our dark purple free lunch ticket was hole punched by the lunch ladies as the other students waited behind me in line. It took me a long time to move beyond the embarrassment and to recognize that my mother’s hard work and heroics paved the way for a better life for my brother and me.

Nearly 50 years later, too many families continue to struggle, despite working one of more jobs, to meet their basic needs. About 300,000 households in our five-county service area experienced a freeze in SNAP benefits in November, the first time in history that this benefit was halted. We saw food-related contacts to our 211 help center increase 210% this November over last. Families faced impossible decisions and lined up around the block at food banks and pantries.

With donations from supporters including The Heinz Endowments, Duquesne Light Company, Eat’n Park Hospitality Group, Kennametal, Inc. and the Fleming Rodgers Group of Baird, United Way created an Emergency Food Assistance Fund that distributed $640,000 to community-based organizations providing food assistance. We mobilized our advocacy system, met with legislators, wrote editorials and ran a third Meal Kit Packing.

While philanthropy can never fill the gaps left by a government shutdown, it was an honor to step up to help our neighbors avoid hunger. I think about my mother that day more than 50 years ago and how the groceries we received relieved some of her worry about having enough to eat. United Way donors, your willingness to step up when we needed you meant that families across our region had a reprieve from food insecurity.