Addison Moore

Due to the ongoing government shutdown, monthly benefits through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been abruptly cut off across the nation. Low-income families often rely on these funds for access to food, and the sudden loss has left many struggling for solutions.

“SNAP benefits in the state of Maine typically get distributed around the tenth of the month, so we’re coming up on a reduction of SNAP in this state,” Hannah Chatalbash, executive director of Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program (MCHPP), said. “All the states operate differently, so we’re coming up on our reduction, and we’re facing an impending cliff here where we know that the most significant and robust safety net for people experiencing food insecurity is about to be eliminated.”

Chatalbash spoke about MCHPP’s plans to brace for what is to come next week.

“We’re in the process of bolstering support internally to make sure that we can respond really actively next week,” she said. “We’re increasing our food purchasing and our food procurement pretty significantly to ensure that all of our sites have more food available.”

As local food pantries and organizations like MCHPP face overwhelming demand, two Brunswick businesses have chosen to step up.

“One of the wonderful things about the greater Brunswick area is that we have this amazing network of food producers [and] growers.… We’ve got massive farms, great restaurants, we’ve got a great school system. We have this amazing network within a short distance from our communities,” Nate Wildes, managing partner at Flight Deck Brewing, said. “So to me, it’s a depressingly poignant moment when an area that has so much is still in a position of allowing children to go hungry.”

Wildes saw this crisis hitting close to home and knew that MCHPP was flooded with demand. He reached out to them to see if Flight Deck could provide any assistance.

“The mantra at [MCHPP] is ‘more is more,’” he said. “So when we called them asking how we can help, their response was, ‘More is more.’”

Through a partnership with Wild Oats Bakery and Café, both restaurants plan to stock a community fridge at the Brunswick Landing YMCA.

“We decided to take on the Family Fridge Initiative, as we’re calling it, and provide that new access point for people,” he said. “The advantage of the Landing [YMCA] is that there’s a stigma component to this. There’s a stigma associated with asking for help, so we wanted to make sure that the food was just available.”

Community members will be able to access food during the YMCA’s hours, which are between 5:30 a.m. and 8 p.m. daily. The team plans to stock the fridges every Tuesday, this past Tuesday being their first day.

“We very specifically didn’t want to do it at Flight Deck or Wild Oats because we didn’t want people having to come and walk past food they had to pay for to go to a fridge,” Wild Oats managing partner Marshall Shepherd said. “That’s why we called our friends at the YMCA.”

Wildes said they had already filled the fridge twice on their first day by mid-afternoon due to high demand.

“We committed at the beginning to every Tuesday, because we knew that was something we could commit to, and frankly, we didn’t know what the demand was going to be,” he said. “We didn’t even get to lunchtime before the fridge was empty today.… We scrambled around during the middle of the day, a bunch of employees volunteered and we paid some employees to come in and help. We packed up some more stuff and just made sure there was food in there for families and folks that were coming in later in the day. We didn’t want them to come and find an empty fridge.”

Wildes said they are monitoring the demand and plan to adjust their previous schedule as needed.

“We’re receiving a bunch of donations that I think are going to be pretty helpful in stocking the fridge again,” he said. “There’s been such a big demand; We’re just trying to figure out the best way to do enough.”

Shepherd similarly noted this issue and agreed with Wildes’ flexible plan.

“We definitely want to keep to that schedule as a minimum because that was our promise, but as we have greater capacity with our staff, we’re trying to do [as much] stocking as we can,” Shepherd said. “We were happy and saddened by the fact that everything was gone so quickly. There’s a clear expression of how much need there is in this community, and it’s incredibly sad that there are that many people not getting their needs met.”

The quick depletion of the fridge underscored how many in the Brunswick community are struggling. The team is now focused on maintaining its ability to be consistent in stocking the fridge and preparing for the long term.

“Our goal is to continue to raise as much money as possible and put it towards making meals, and if we have any excess money, or we can’t keep up with the production, we’re going to donate everything else to [MCHPP],” Shepherd said. “At the same time, we’re obviously hoping that the SNAP benefits are reinstated. In my mind, this is the whole point of government: to help those in need.”

Chatalbash also mentioned a compounding difficulty particular to the region at this time of year: the cold.

“We’re headed into the most difficult time of year for food insecurity because in the northeast, what we grapple with is cold temperatures and the cost of heating prices,” Chatalbash said. “At this point, it is being compounded by this new problem of the government shutdown. It’s just adding an additional level of complexity, stress, pressure and complication to this situation.”

Though MCHPP is preparing for long-term solutions, Chatalbash hopes the government shutdown will be brief and SNAP benefits can ramp up again soon.

“It is our sincere hope that our government figures out how to function by the month of December so that we can get SNAP benefits back on track and start operating this country using the functional programs that we know are the best tools that we have to eliminate hunger,” Chatalbash said.