TOPEKA (KSNT) – Local organizations plan to team up to help families who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan (SNAP).
According to the Kansas Department of Children and Families, over 8,300 household in Shawnee County are enrolled in SNAP. If the government shutdown continues, $3 million in SNAP funding will be withheld from people living here.
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“Just in the last week, we’ve had a major uptake of clients of people needing food,” said Jamie Jalil, Executive Director of Be Filled of South Topeka. “If you can’t feed your family so many other things fall.”
United Way of Kaw Valley and Live Well Shawnee County met for an emergency meeting about SNAP on Oct. 29. Local groups like the Topeka Rescue Mission and Be Filled came together to discuss what they can do to help the community during the shutdown.
“It felt great to have a number of our partners across the community come together,” said Brett Martin, vice president of Community Impact at United Way Kaw Valley. “It’s important that we work together. Our families deserve our best efforts. So it was inspiring to see everybody in the room today.”
The main takeaway from today’s meeting was finding more places to store food and connecting with one another.
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“This is about placing the community at the center of our work,” Martin said. “We’re giving them our very best efforts. This is a time of crisis for many individuals creating a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety.”
“Not only are we meeting right now because a crisis is happening, but we need to have this round table, we need to have this networking and this partnership going forward,” Jalil said.
SNAP benefits end Oct 31. The organizations plan to meet again in the future.
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