As Shutdown Drags On, Our Neighbor are Already Paying the Price

Originally published in the Greensboro News & Record on10-23-2025. Reprinted here with attribution.

By Eric A. Aft

Chief Executive Officer

Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest NC

I have walked the halls and distribution floor of Second Harvest Food Bank of Northwest North Carolina long enough to recognize an unmistakable shift when it happens. There is a particular tone to the phone calls from partners. There is a tension in the voices of people reaching out for help with food for the first time. There is a familiar combination of concern and resolve among our team. All those signals are here again in week four of the government shutdown.

But what is less visible, when your income is steady and your pantry is full, is how many families were already living one bill away from crisis before this shutdown began. Across our 18-county service area, requests for food assistance have doubled from 2022 levels and remain elevated. Families are still rebuilding from Hurricane Helene. Many have not yet recovered from pandemic-era losses. Now, with SNAP and WIC funding uncertain and disruptions and delays in critical nutritional support expected, the pressure on our network is escalating fast.

Shutdowns do not unfold like a storm that arrives and departs abruptly. They seep. They compound. And they hit hardest in the lives of people with the fewest buffers — the families whose budgets were already so tight that one unexpected bill, one late paycheck, one delayed benefit tips them into crisis.

At Second Harvest, we are not waiting to see how long Congress takes to act. Even if the shutdown ends tomorrow, its effects will ripple for weeks. We have already doubled key food purchases, dipping into our reserves to do so to ensure our pantry partners can continue meeting requests for help. We are stabilizing community feeding programs for children and older adults that cannot simply “pause” because Washington is deadlocked. And we are preparing for an influx of families whose food assistance support is now sure to be delayed, as well as those who may never have had to ask for assistance before, including, but not only, workers who are working without pay.

These are not abstract exercises for our team. A retired teaching assistant living near our warehouse called about food assistance, something she said she never imagined having to do in her 70s, but with rising food costs now must do. WIC office staff members are reaching out to ask if we can help if the program funding stops. This is what government dysfunction looks like at ground level.

Food banks are a powerful community asset, but we are not a replacement for functional public policy. Private philanthropy cannot underwrite the volume and stability that federal nutrition programs provide to children, older adults and people with disabilities. When those investments falter, food banks must stretch further, faster and longer to hold the line — and the cost of that strain lands on community generosity.

That is the moment we are in now. As a food bank, we will not allow children to lose meals, seniors to go without, or working families to face empty shelves. But we also cannot carry this surge without the community alongside us.

So here is what this moment requires — clearly and without sentimentality:

We need our community to act. If you are able, help us keep food flowing by giving, volunteering or organizing with your faith community, employer or civic group. Every dollar and every hour matters more when crisis comes to our communities.

And we need our elected leaders to act. Shutdowns and short-term fixes are not strategy. Continuing resolutions are not stability. Nutrition programs must be funded fully and predictably so that families, farmers, schools and health systems are not held hostage to gridlock.

The test of a shutdown is not how long it lasts. It is whether we allow families to carry the cost. Second Harvest and our partners will do our part with urgency and without hesitation. Communities like ours have proven repeatedly that when crisis comes, we stand together. My confidence in that has never wavered.

As you are able, please stand with families now

• Give: Every dollar supports more meals through our network.

• Launch a Virtual Food Drive: Donations flow directly to our partner agencies.

• Volunteer: From sorting donations to preparing community meals, volunteers are critical to sustaining our response.

• Raise Your Voice for Families: Tell our leaders that nutrition is essential and stability matters. Call on them to end the shutdown and protect the programs that feed and strengthen our communities.

Need food assistance?

Get connected to a food program near you at SecondHarvestNWNC.org/find-help.