LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program payments, also known as SNAP benefits, stopped Saturday as part of the ongoing government shutdown. Around 500,000 Nevadans rely on the program to feed their families.
Food banks like Three Square are ramping up operations to help feed those families.
Volunteers gathered at sites across the Las Vegas valley Saturday for the start of emergency food distributions planned during the lapse in SNAP benefits. Hundreds helped Three Square distribute food outside the Thomas and Mack Center at UNLV.
“Over this weekend, we’ve mobilized hundreds of volunteers, we’ll need hundreds more, maybe thousands this week as long as the shutdown continues,” Beth Martino, president & CEO of Three Square, said. “It’s been incredible to see our phone ringing off the hook, people going on our website and signing up. This is what Nevadans do.”
Volunteers loaded food into the trunks of people’s cars, ready to serve at least 1,000 families, according to Martino.
People at the emergency distribution received around 60 pounds of food, which volunteers with Three Square say is enough to feed an average family for about a week.
“This morning we all woke up and there are half a million people in Nevada that were expecting to receive SNAP benefits, go do their grocery shopping, and they don’t know how they’re going to pay for groceries,” Martino said.
Around 80 percent of volunteers at the distribution came from UNLV. Dr. Constance Brooks, vice president of government and community engagement for UNLV, said the lapse in benefits affects some of the university’s students.
“We have students who are SNAP recipients and so therefore will be impacted,” Dr. Brooks said. “Our students are everyday Nevadans also, and they are impacted by the government shutdown just as much as others are across the valley.”
Impacts across the valley were also felt before the shutdown. Martino said there has been a 16% increase in people served over the past four months, with the SNAP pause now skyrocketing that number. She said Three Square will be here for the community until the shutdown is over.
