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Illinois Valley food pantries report more clients, reduced benefits · Illinois Valley - Shaw Local

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  Speaker 1: Illinois Valley food pantries report more clients reduced benefits. Written
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  Speaker 1: by Tom Collins, this article is being read by an
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  Speaker 1: automated voice brought to you by Everlett. The Illinois Valley
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  Speaker 1: food pantry in Peru could reach a sad milestone by
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  Speaker 1: Labor Day weekend. If new clients sign up at the
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  Speaker 1: current pace, the pantry will see an eighteen percent increase
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  Speaker 1: in requests for help. Mary Joe Cretti, executive director, said
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  Speaker 1: the pantry is on pace for nearly three hundred new
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  Speaker 1: clients by the end of the fiscal year on August
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  Speaker 1: thirty first, and it wasn't entirely gradual. When word of
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  Speaker 1: federal cutbacks trickled in, families with children and individuals with
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  Speaker 1: jobs began applying for food assistants. The cut in SNAP
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  Speaker 1: funds and other assistance programs in the cost of living
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  Speaker 1: are what's driving this. Credi said, we were seeing an
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  Speaker 1: increase slowly, then when the talk of the cuts became reality,
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  Speaker 1: we saw a major increase and we are still seeing
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  Speaker 1: the effects of the cuts. It isn't just happening in Peru.
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  Speaker 1: Other food pantries in the Illinois Valley reported significant increases
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  Speaker 1: in the volume of new applicants. Tony Biddo, a board
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  Speaker 1: member with the street Land Community Food Pantree, said the
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  Speaker 1: pantry served a whopping nine hundred and seventy six individuals
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  Speaker 1: or two hundred and ninety one families, a figure that
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  Speaker 1: rivals the flood of one thousand, four hundred last fall.
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  Speaker 1: We had a big spike in October and November, Biddo said.
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  Speaker 1: Since then it's calmed down, but we're seeing a spike now.
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  Speaker 1: At the Bureau County Food Pantry in Princeton, manager Vanessa
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  Speaker 1: Hafiditz saw a fifteen percent increase in the number of
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  Speaker 1: individuals served between twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: with the pantry providing food assistants to three thy and
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  Speaker 1: twenty households. The year to date totals suggest hofetits will
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  Speaker 1: surpass that total by New years. Through the end of June,
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  Speaker 1: there were one thousand, five hundred and forty for households
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  Speaker 1: to be fed. The Hall Township Food Pantry in Spring
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  Speaker 1: Valley reported no such surge, but executive director Jan Martin
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  Speaker 1: cautioned against presuming that poor families aren't hurting. Martin said
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  Speaker 1: the pantry is on pace to assist one hundred and
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  Speaker 1: twenty eight new clients this year, which would be down
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  Speaker 1: from last year one hundred and eighty one new clients
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  Speaker 1: and from twenty twenty four one to seventy seven new clients.
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  Speaker 1: That would be an encouraging trend if the pantry's service
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  Speaker 1: area were demographically stable, it isn't. We have a very
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  Speaker 1: transient population. Martin explained. They can actually hop counties several
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  Speaker 1: times a year. For this reason, it is difficult to
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  Speaker 1: draw too many conclusions from those numbers. Behind the numbers,
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  Speaker 1: she said, is a more worrying trend. The majority of
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  Speaker 1: supplicants are working and have income, but inflation and stagnant
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  Speaker 1: wages are making it harder to make ends meet. Marissa Vasich,
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  Speaker 1: executive director of Community Food Basket in Ottawa, said summer
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  Speaker 1: is a busy time. No subsidized school lunches hurt families,
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  Speaker 1: but there is no statistical evidence that summer twenty six
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  Speaker 1: is worse than last year. Our numbers are pretty flat.
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  Speaker 1: Visage said, we were kind of bracing for a summer rush,
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  Speaker 1: and we were quite busy at the end of June,
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  Speaker 1: but overall we're seeing the same volume of people, just
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  Speaker 1: not at the same time. It just depends on how
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  Speaker 1: people utilize other benefits they receive. A similar trend seems
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  Speaker 1: to be taking place in Mendota. Tracy Cooper, executive director
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  Speaker 1: from Mendoda area Christian Food Pantry, said her year over
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  Speaker 1: year totals are roughly unchanged, but as in Spring Valley,
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  Speaker 1: she thinks residents are gravitating to areas with more and
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  Speaker 1: better paying job opportunities. My numbers are staying pretty stable,
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  Speaker 1: Cooper said, But what I'm hearing from people is either
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  Speaker 1: they lost their link benefits or they were cut drastically.
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  Speaker 1: According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the
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  Speaker 1: Republican megabill, enacted July fourth, twenty twenty five, made deep
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  Speaker 1: cuts to federal funding for food assistance through the Supplemental
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  Speaker 1: Nutrition Assistance Program SNAP, shifting significant new costs to states.
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  Speaker 1: We estimate that SNAP participation nationwide fell by more than
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  Speaker 1: four million people ten percent between the laws July twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty five enactment and March twenty twenty six, based on
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  Speaker 1: the latest month of data from the US Department of
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  Speaker 1: Agriculture USDA and data from the Georgia Department of Human
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  Speaker 1: Services provided in an open records request. This estimate uses
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  Speaker 1: state data for Georgia due to anomalies in USDA data.
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  Speaker 1: The Center further stated that SNAP enrollment in Illinois fell
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  Speaker 1: from one point nine million in July twenty twenty five
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  Speaker 1: to one point seven million, a net loss of ten
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  Speaker 1: point seven percent.