‘Can we get some food please?’ SNAP shutdown upends food security for Charlotte

Kay Soto-Padgett and their wife didn’t even bother waiting to get into the Bountiful Blessings drive-up food pantry on Thursday.

Its line snaked around several streets in a quiet Gastonia neighborhood. The couple spent some time driving around, hoping to find a place to enter the line, but it seemed to have no end in sight. Even if they did find a place in line, Soto-Padgett was sure they’d be waiting for hours.

Food pantries like Bountiful Blessings have helped Soto-Padgett and their wife stretch the couple’s $500 stipend from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program the last few months. But in November, due to the government shutdown, that food stamp money might not be coming. And the couple, who are still recovering from a car accident this summer, are in the red as they rely on their DoorDash income and loans from family to get by.

To see a program that Soto-Padgett has relied on since they were a kid be paused is scary. But to see it used as a negotiating chip by the federal government is angering, they said.

“At the end of the day, they’re sitting over here fighting across the table. ‘You did this.’ ‘No, you did this.’ ‘No, you did this.’ And we’re just like, can we get some food please?”

President Donald Trump’s tax and spending cut bill, which passed in July, slashed $1 trillion for Medicaid and SNAP. It left states like North Carolina with a difficult choice: find a way to front hundreds of millions of dollars for SNAP annually, or cut the program altogether.

The latter was a feared worst case scenario for the state health department, advocates and recipients. But the current government shutdown has whisked concerns about the impacts on life without food stamps into immediate reality.

On Saturday more than 143,000 Mecklenburg County residents and 1.4 million North Carolinians are likely to experience a pause to their SNAP benefits. A federal judge ruled Friday that the Trump administration must pay for SNAP benefits during the shutdown, but it was not immediately clear if or how quickly those benefits would appear.

Food pantries in the Charlotte metro region — some of which have already hit record service numbers — are bracing to help the thousands of people whose EBT cards won’t be loaded with their monthly stipend. State and local leaders have warned for months that nonprofits alone do not have the capacity to fill the gaping hole that will be left by cuts or delays in SNAP. The fallout, leaders say, will be catastrophic.

“To just freeze it all together, that’s never happened in the history of SNAP benefits,” said Tina Postel, CEO of Nourish Up. “I mean, it’s never happened. There have been threats of delays and things of that nature. But you are talking (about) millions of Americans. I mean, the numbers are so big it’s hard to even imagine it.”

Increased demand came before SNAP threat

In a tucked away corridor inside Care Ring’s headquarters, mothers with their babies and individuals shopping for their families peruse the shelves of the cozy food pantry. The pantry opened in March as part of Nourish Up’s network of 40 food pantries across Mecklenburg County.

Clients, who get access to the pantry on a referral basis, have their choice of canned goods like Campbell’s Spaghetti & Meatballs, cereal, some produce and essentials — like baby bottles and Similac.

In its seven months, Care Ring’s food pantry has provided food to more than 600 households. And for those who come in without an appointment, staff have emergency food boxes prepared so they don’t leave empty-handed.

In the last few weeks, pantry staff said they’ve seen an increase of walk-ins — many federal workers lacking paychecks during the government shutdown, which has no end in sight. With SNAP experiencing delays, they expect an increase in visitors.

“These next couple of weeks are going to really show what’s going on,” said Jennifer Andrews, Care Ring’s director of communications.

The loss of food stamps doesn’t just cause people to be hungry, but has trickle-down effects that seep into other areas of life, said Tchernavia Montgomery, chief executive officer of Care Ring.

“Food is medicine and by preventing access to food, individuals are going to have negative impacts on chronic diseases. It is going to only inflate other issues like poverty, unemployment, and it’s going to put a strain on our safety net system that is already very fragile,” she said.

Since the government shut down, Nourish Up’s network of food pantries has seen a 20% increase in visits largely from federal workers, Postel said. To prepare for the loss of SNAP, the organization has ordered extra tractor trailer loads of food and appealed to the community to donate to help them purchase more meals.

Last year, Nourish Up hit record numbers feeding 164,000 people — enough to fill Bank of America Stadium twice.

The service is vital for families. But there’s a recognition that what they provide is only a Band-Aid on their clients’ true needs, Andrews said. A referral to Nourish Up’s food pantry program grants a client access to any of their network of pantries for a total of 12 times a calendar year. But outside those 12 visits, families have to figure out other options, Andrews said.

Long before the government shutdown, Postel had warned about the impact that the loss of SNAP would have on the community. For every person her organization feeds, SNAP feeds nine more.

“Even if the entire nonprofit sector as a whole came together, there is not a nonprofit big enough. We do not have a superhero cape big enough to make up the gap of this crisis the federal government has created,” she said.

Political games

This is the first time a government shutdown has disrupted SNAP, a program that dates back to the Great Depression. Some feel the most vulnerable are being used as pieces in a political game.

Carmen Hooker Odom, former secretary of the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services and board member for Care Ring, never thought she’d see the day that SNAP would become vulnerable. It’s hard for her to wrap her mind around it.

“For an administration that prides itself on business acumen, this doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “If you just look at it, from the return on investment and economic boom to families. And if you have any sense of caring about children and children’s nourishment, and I do think they do care about that. So it doesn’t make any sense to me.”

The Trump administration argued that it can not tap into its $5.5 billion contingency fund to cover SNAP benefits in November. “Bottom line, the well has run dry,” reads a message on the U.S Department of Agriculture’s website. Postel called the choice not to tap into these funds “cruelty at its finest.”

“There is $6 billion sitting in that USDA reserve fund. Now that wouldn’t cover all of SNAP benefits for November, but man, it would give people a lifeline,” she said. “And so, their statement that the ‘well has run dry,’ that couldn’t be more untrue. They are locking those funds behind a wall, and they’re just going to watch people suffer.”

Montgomery described her board of directors as a ‘purple board’. Its members represent many sides of the political spectrum, she said.

“Some way, we find a path towards agreement and understanding. And it has not interrupted our work as an organization because we are aligned to a shared mission and vision for this community,” she said. “It would be my dream for our state and federal government to arrive to a similar place of understanding. So that vulnerable individuals in our community and nonprofit organizations that have vowed to support them are not facing some of the detriment that we believe is ahead.”

Watching the news the past couple weeks and seeing debates over SNAP benefits and health care amidst the shutdown has been frustrating, Soto-Padgett said. It’s hard to watch and not feel like a political pawn, they said.

“Those are human rights. Those are human necessities,” they said of health care and food. “If you don’t take care of us health-wise, we could die. If you don’t feed us, we could die. And instead of sitting at the table and looking at each other and going, ‘OK, Americans are hungry, and they’re sick, we need to be able to meet both needs.’ It’s either one or the other and I don’t think that’s fair.”

Nourish Up and Care Ring are encouraging people to donate and sign up to volunteer. To learn more visit: https://careringnc.org/donate-online/ or https://nourishup.org/donate/

This story was originally published November 1, 2025 at 5:21 AM.