Fred Glass, President and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana said today that Gleaners is proactively working to help federal employees and other Hoosiers being hurt by the government shutdown. “The government shutdown is directly hurting Hoosiers, particularly the military and other federal workers, as well as small businesses, who are not receiving the pay they deserve and rely on,” Glass observed. “For many, the shutdown is affecting their ability to feed their families at the worst possible time, when grocery prices continue to rise and food insecurity rates are at their highest in a decade.”
Approximately 24,000 Hoosiers work for the federal government to provide important services through TSA, FAA, Social Security Administration, FBI, Department of Veteran’s Affairs, Department of Homeland Security, and the court system, among other places. In addition, there are 1,100 Hoosiers serving in the active-duty military. Many of these workers and soldiers will stop receiving their paychecks this month.
Gleaners has proactively contacted all of these federal agencies across central Indiana, offering to support these Hoosiers who are being required to work without pay with the nutritious foods they may need to help feed their families during this time.
As a result, for example, Gleaners is partnering with TSA to make available to its approximately 350 employees at the Indianapolis International Airport special, regular, food distributions of fresh produce, milk, eggs, protein, and healthy dry goods. As of today, 225 TSA employees have signed up for these special Gleaners food distributions.
Glass noted that the shutdown is hurting Hoosiers beyond those who work for the federal government or are enlisted in the military. It also prevents farmers, small businesses, and other federal contractors from being paid.
The shutdown will be especially devastating for children. Funding for the Women, Infants, and Children program (WIC) is expected to run out at the end of this month, severing nutrition benefits and placing brand new mothers and young children at risk. There are approximately 156,000 Hoosiers who receive assistance from WIC, and more than half of the recipients are children. Funding for child nutrition programs will be disrupted, jeopardizing school breakfasts and lunches, which are vital to children’s academic success. Almost half of all children in Indiana’s public schools receive free or reduced lunch through federal child nutrition programs.
The USDA issued a memo on October 10th to state agencies to suspend November SNAP payments. More than 600,000 Hoosiers rely on SNAP to help meet their most basic nutrition needs, including 14.3% of Indiana households with children. Not funding SNAP, a program Hoosiers and Americans have been able to rely on without disruption for 50 years, would plunge hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers deeper into hunger.
Food banks are not allowed during the shutdown to ask for the food they normally receive from the federal government through The Emergency Food Assistance Program and similar federal nutrition programs, impacting the families, especially rural families, who need the essential, nutritious food these programs provide, as well as the farmers who sell that food to USDA.
“As the tragic, unnecessary need driven by the shutdown continues to rise,” Glass commented, “Gleaners will redouble its efforts to provide nutritious food to Hoosiers who are hurting.”
Individuals needing assistance should visit gleaners.org/findhelp or call the Tom and Julie Wood Family Resource Center at (317) 643-8990.
