Homemade lasagnas and foil-wrapped burritos prepared and delivered between neighbors. A farmers market offering funds for fresh and local produce. A buddy program to help provide groceries for anyone in need.
As people face rising grocery prices and an uncertain economy, community groups across the country are rallying volunteers with creative ways to ensure their neighbors don’t go hungry. Leaders of these mutual-aid networks say requests have been especially high in recent weeks, when the federal government was shut down and food stamp benefits were interrupted.
But even more Americans are grappling with higher food costs caused by inflation, tariffs and the war in Ukraine.
Grocery costs were 2.7 percent higher in August than a year before, according to the latest data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and 29 percent more expensive than in February 2020 — before the coronavirus pandemic. About 7 in 10 Americans who responded to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll last month said their grocery costs had risen in the last year. A substantial chunk of those respondents also said they faced higher utility, health care, housing and gas prices.
Affordability has emerged as a potent political issue in recent weeks. New York Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani and the winners of governor contests in New Jersey and Virginia are among the candidates who won this month’s elections after running campaigns focused on lowering everyday costs. President Donald Trump, too, has been ramping up his effort to convince Americans that he can lower the cost of living, even as the Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll found that most Americans blame him for rising prices.
“There’s a lot of things happening in our communities that is really causing a lot of stress, overwhelm, panic and fear,” said Andria Larson, executive director of Lasagna Love, an international volunteer movement founded in the United States. “It’s growing every day. We’re seeing more requests than the day before, and I really don’t know that it’s going to subside over the next couple of weeks.”
Lasagna Love links volunteers willing to cook and deliver a lasagna to neighbors in need. The group focuses on lasagna because it “speaks to the heart” and is especially good for leftovers, Larson said.
The group saw a 400 percent spike in requests during the last week of October compared to a year ago, Larson said. On Oct. 31, the day before food stamps — known as Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — were cut off, it had more than 59,000 active requests for a meal.
Typical recent recipients have included single parents who are skipping meals so that their children won’t go hungry, seniors living alone and military families who have struggled because of the record-breaking government shutdown, which ended late Wednesday after 43 days.
Like many mutual-aid groups, Lasagna Love started in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. Another nonprofit, the Oregon-based Burrito Brigade, has been hand-delivering vegan burritos in Eugene and Springfield for 10 years, and opened Waste to Taste, a food pantry set up like a grocery store, during the pandemic.
Burrito Brigade’s executive director, Jennifer Denson, also said she’d never seen demand as high as it has been over the past several weeks. Requests for appointments at Waste to Taste had been gradually increasing due to high grocery prices, but they exploded the last week of October amid warnings that SNAP benefits would pause.
“The wait list went from a handful of people to 60 people in a week,” she said. “My phone was absolutely going off the hook with people trying to find food.”
New movements have also sprouted up in recent weeks.
When Brooke Tansley, who lives in Nashville, heard about the potential loss of SNAP funding, she initially felt like there wasn’t much she could do to help. Her own family was stretched thin as she held down a temporary job and a part-time job with two children. There was just “not a lot of extra time, and there’s not a lot of extra money,” she said.
But in late October, Tansley had an idea to make it easier to help neighbors in need, and immediately posted it to her community Facebook group.
“1. If your SNAP is going to run out Nov. 1 and you need help with groceries, comment below,” she wrote. “2. If you are able to buddy up with someone by getting them groceries or gift cards, claim your buddy by replying to their comment AND send them a DM to connect about food and logistics.”
More than 270 comments expressing need or offering help poured in over the next several days.
Tansley has since received messages from people around the country — in San Jose; Orlando; Annapolis, Maryland; Madison, Wisconsin; and more — asking how they could start a similar program in their city. She believes the project has been successful in Nashville because it gives people an easy and immediate way to help their neighbors.
“What I hope this does is create more connection in American communities,” Tansley said. “A lot of people are feeling lonely and disconnected, and I don’t think we’ve quite come out of our silos after covid. And I hope that people are finding their way back to each other.”
Other efforts have focused locally, expanding existing programs to respond to the uncertainty in SNAP funding. Before SNAP benefits lapsed on Nov. 1, the Boise Farmers Market in Idaho fundraised $21,976 to “fill the SNAP gap,” granting $40 to anyone who presented their SNAP benefit card at the Saturday market.
Through the program, pulled together by the market’s executive director, Amber Beierle, half of the money given to recipients could be spent on any eligible item at the market, including meat, cheese, bread, vegetables and more. The other $20 was designated specifically for local fruits and vegetables.
“Our farmers are going to get paid, and our neighbors are going to get fed,” Beierle said. “And 100 percent of the funds that are coming through, it’s not going to be administrative or anything like that. It’s just going back out so that we can keep that promise.”
The system helped 551 households that depend on SNAP, as well as local farmers, Beierle said. She hopes to keep raising funds and continue the program the rest of the month, even though SNAP benefits started to resume last week.
Mutual-aid group leaders who spoke to The Washington Post said they believe the increased demands for assistance will continue. Prices remain high, and many Americans were struggling financially even before the government shutdown.
And while the last few weeks may have highlighted the power in neighbors showing up for one another, the leaders said their efforts shouldn’t be considered permanent solutions to the affordability crisis.
“While I’m not surprised to see people stepping up in communities all over the country to help their neighbors, it isn’t sustainable long-term,” Tansley said. “We really need our government to get back to work, and make sure that Americans are going to continue to get affordable health care and continue to get the food assistance that they need.”
Beierle said she hopes politicians in D.C. gain a better understanding of how their decisions are affecting American families.
“It’s not political to feed your neighbor. It’s not political to help a farmer,” she said. “And I think if we could just get some of our leaders to come down here and look at the market and what we’re doing and see the best of us, I think they might make decisions a little bit quicker.”
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