Local organizations that assisted families in need during the recent SNAP pause each gave out at least $1,000 worth of food gift cards in the week that local grant assistance was available, said a local official.
The assistance began on Nov. 10 and ran through Nov. 14, when it was announced that federal funding would be reinstated after the government shutdown ended.
In October, the Henderson County Fiscal Court approved a $21,000 grant that was split equally among three agencies: Henderson Christian Community Outreach, Salvation Army and Henderson County Homeless Coalition.
According to the guidelines of the grant funding from fiscal court, the grant money was available to help those in need while the SNAP pause continued but once SNAP re-opened, the remaining grant money was to be returned to fiscal court.
Melissa Collier, the homeless case manager with the Henderson County Homeless Coalition, said her organization helped 12 families that numbered 31 people.
The amount of money on the Sureway gift cards that went to each family ranged from $50 to $150 and was based on the amount of SNAP benefits each family receives, Collier said.
Susan Smith, the executive director of the Henderson Christian Community Outreach, said her organization gave out $1,000 worth of Sureway gift cards. (They also continued normal operations of filling groceries for hundreds of people.)
The Salvation Army handed out $1,350 worth of gift cards, said Capt. Jane Monroe.
Gov. Andy Beshear said on Nov. 14 that Kentucky had “received the go-ahead to fully fund” food assistance. On Nov. 15, he said SNAP benefits were being loaded onto cards, according to a Kentucky Lantern article.
The longest-ever government shutdown ended Nov. 12 after 43 days of a political stalemate in Washington. During that time, the Trump administration did not pay SNAP benefits to the roughly 42 million Americans who use the program to buy groceries.
In Kentucky, Beshear gave $5 million in emergency funds to food banks and authorized interested National Guard members to help staff pantries around the state.
State employees worked last weekend to load benefits onto electronic benefit transfer cards for the almost 600,000 Kentuckians who have benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
The Kentucky Lantern contributed state news information to this report.
