US EditionColorado Boosts WIC, Food Pantries Amid D.C. Stalemate
Requests for food and utility assistance doubled amid SNAP benefit loss, with daily calls to the 211 helpline rising from 1,000 to over 3,800 in late October 2025.
- On Nov. 1, the 211 network of helplines reported calls for food pantries doubled to over 2,200 per day after nearly 42 million Americans lost SNAP benefits last Saturday.
- On Oct. 26, the Trump administration announced SNAP benefits would not arrive as scheduled, prompting a lawsuit seeking USDA 'contingency reserve funds' to sustain SNAP past Nov. 1.
- Each 211 request is coded by need using a taxonomy of over 10,000 need types, linked to caller ZIP codes, and data from 211 Counts, which includes over 90 million requests.
- Colorado's Joint Budget Committee approved two emergency appropriations, including $10 million for food pantries and banks and $7,500,000 for WIC operations, as local food pantries and volunteers face heavier burdens.
- Excluding disasters, 211 early-warning system data show rare surges like during the COVID-19 pandemic; new tools improve detection but can't fix scarce local resources.
49 Articles
49 Articles
Local food pantries rally to meet surging demand
In the final week of October, upon opening the doors of the Bread of Life food pantry at Greenville Community Church, Susanne LeFeve waited anxiously as a few patrons trickled in to pick up their monthly supply of food. “It’s the calm before the storm,” she recalled. As funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits was set to expire on Nov. 1 due to the ongoing federal government shutdown, LeFeve had predicted that th…
The shutdown of the U.S. government - the longest “shutdown” in the country's history, which completed 38 days this Friday - opened a series of crises in the federal administration, while representatives of the Democratic and Republican parties are unable to approve a budget bill that would unblock the agenda and re-authorize basic spending. Between layoffs due to lack of resources, wage delays for a wide range of workers, and losses to importan…
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