Media Coverage

Ohio’s SNAP-Ed program, the free nutrition-education arm pairing with the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, will shut down Oct. 1 under the “One Big, Beautiful Bill Act,” ending school lessons, pantry demos and grocery-on-a-budget classes many low-income families rely on.

In 2024, Ohio SNAP-Ed partnered with more than 1,200 organizations, reaching 37,000 adults and 245,000 youth.

Eliza Richardson, nutrition programs coordinator for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, said the end of SNAP-Ed erases more than cooking tips, it takes away tools helping families manage their health on tight budgets.

Families are bracing for less help every month getting dinner on the table. More changes are coming to the SNAP program, and it has the potential to reduce or eliminate benefits for millions.

For decades, lower-income families have supplemented their grocery store costs with SNAP benefits. Now, with new federal requirements, certain groups are at risk of losing those benefits.

The biggest change going into effect this fall is the new work requirements.

The largest anti-hunger program in the United State is undergoing major changes.

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is a federal safety net which has provided food assistance for vulnerable Americans since 1964 and President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “War on Poverty”.

Food banks warn the changes could create a crisis in an already fragile system.

Under the new federal budget signed into law in July, Ohio will lose hundreds of millions in SNAP benefits.

However, programs like St. Luke’s mobile pantry are at risk.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut two federal programs that provide funds to schools and food banks to buy food directly from local farms, ranchers and producers. The USDA also cut nearly $500 million specifically intended to help food banks through its Emergency Food Assistance program.

Joree Novotny is the executive director at the Ohio Association of Foodbanks. She said state and federal support provide about half of the supply that food banks across Ohio distribute to families in need.

“Without those investments in our nation’s first line of defense against hunger, we would see devastating ripple effects at the food bank level,” Novotny said. “We don’t have the food supply in our network to replace that purchasing power that 1.5 million Ohioans currently have at the grocery store.”

Additionally, the 2025 federal budget bill slashes more than $100 billion for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP or food stamps.

Many, including Novotny, are calling on the federal government for changes.

Share Our Strength’s Medicaid Food Security Partners Program, an initiative of the Medicaid Food Security Network (MFSN), has launched its second grantee cohort. The program awards $75,000 grants to four state-based organizations to support the advocacy or implementation of promising food security policy initiatives within their respective state Medicaid programs. Their strategies will include a special focus on increasing enrollment in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC).

As a new school year begins in Ohio, an old problem persists: child hunger. Hunger relief programs continue to strain under the demand, while receiving less support from state and federal sources.

According to Feeding America, 1 in 5 children in the state face hunger, amounting to more than 517,000 kids.

“You have a lot of people bending heaven and earth to get food into kids mouths, but the problem is, we can’t do it alone,” said Deacon Nick Bates, director of Hunger Network in Ohio, which partners with religious congregations and local agencies to address hunger.

Bates has seen firsthand the compromises that have to be made at church food pantries and other hunger-relief efforts across the state because of state and federal budget cuts. Fresh foods are in limited supply, and resources are being spread thin.

“Instead of being able to give out five days worth of food, it means giving two to three days worth of food,” Bates said.

He said the long-term effects of hungry kids will hit the state in different ways, from health outcomes to education struggles, even with the waning of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We should recognize that the pandemic may have ended, but the scars still remain,” Bates said. “One of those scars is hunger, and when kids are hungry, they’re more likely to get sick; when kids are hungry, they have trouble learning.”