This week’s SojoMail features Bekah McNeel, who reports that churches aren’t equipped to fully address the economic inequality that a lack of SNAP benefits is exacerbating:
For Deidra Harrison in Nacogdoches, Texas, the lead-up to All Saints Day wasn’t what it usually is. In addition to preparing for the usual church festivals and trick-or-treaters that mark the season associated with abundant harvests, Harrison and her team of volunteers were scrambling to meet a growing food scarcity created by the U.S. Government shutdown as it entered its fourth week.
Harrison is the board president for HOPE (Helping Other People Eat) Food Pantry, one of the many food pantries and food banks seeing long lines and high turnout as 42 million Americans brace for delays to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payouts.
“People are scared,” she told Sojourners via email earlier this week.
As the November lapse approached, fundraisers for food pantries and food banks proliferated across social media. Local governments and churches created emergency funds and food drives. Elementary schools sent home resource sheets with lists of churches with weekly pantries. Mutual aid networks popped up in neighborhoods, connecting SNAP beneficiaries with “grocery buddies” who volunteered to help them endure the lapse.
“All the religious organizations that I know are participating in food drives right now for food pantries,” said Rev. Jason Coker, national director of Together for Hope, the rural community development coalition of the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.
But it’s not just this increased demand that's putting pressure on local pantries, either. | 
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