Funding cuts threaten to deepen hunger crisis as rising costs send more families to food banks

NEW YORK (AP) — The Campaign Against Hunger was already struggling to feed thousands of families a week when the Trump administration pulled more than $1.3 million in grants.

Demand has only increased at the New York nonprofit since the city emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic and the related economic insecurity. In a first for the pantry, however, it isn't just the jobless lining up for its fresh produce and meats. It's working people, too.

Food banks typically see the most need during periods of high unemployment and yet the U.S. is facing down a hunger crisis during a relatively resilient labor market. The latest U.S. Department of Agriculture research showed there were one million more food insecure households in 2023 than 2022.

Now, income stagnation and rising living costs are sending wage earners to food banks across the country — all as the federal government shuts off funding streams that provide millions with healthier, harder-to-get groceries. The squeeze comes as Republicans discuss budget plans that hunger relief groups fear will deepen the crisis by slashing food stamp spending.

“We were already in a bad state. But now we have been plunged head down into a crisis that should never have been,” said Melony Samuels, chief executive officer of The Campaign Against Hunger. “If major cuts like these continue, I would imagine that our doors will close.”

Funding cuts began threatening food availability in March.

The USDA halted $500 million of expected food deliveries and cut another $1 billion for hunger relief programs supporting local producers. The Department of Homeland Security also rescinded Federal Emergency Management Agency grants for local governments and nonprofits — including The Campaign Against Hunger — to shelter and feed newly arrived noncitizen migrants after their release.

“Secretary Noem has directed FEMA to implement additional controls to ensure that all grant money going out is consistent with law and does not go to fraud, waste or abuse, as in the past,” DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin said in a statement.

Samuels said her nonprofit is limiting normally bimonthly food distributions to once a month due to the lost funds, which are being withheld amid what she called “baseless allegations" from DHS that the nonprofit might have broken laws against transporting migrants in the country illegally.

That means fewer nutritious options for the dozens of people — some holding babies, many pushing carts — who recently waited to shop inside The Campaign Against Hunger's Brooklyn mock-store on an overcast weekday in April.

Longtime Brooklyn resident Kim Dennis has noticed the uptick in need. On top of her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, the 65-year-old retiree visits The Campaign Against Hunger twice each month for groceries like potatoes and pork chops that are more difficult to find at other food banks often filled with canned goods.

“The lines are getting a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot," Dennis said, partially due to recent immigration waves. “Everything is going up and a lot of us cannot afford."

Over half of responding food banks told Feeding America they served more neighbors this February than the same month last year.

Christiana Santamaria said she visits a local food bank in Alameda, California each week to feed herself, her husband and their daughter. They struggle to cover food costs, internet bills and car payments with a monthly household income of nearly $3,000.

“I mean, my husband, he works full-time. He has a quote-unquote ‘good job.’ But I mean, it’s the military. And if even the military can’t afford things, that’s sad," she said.

The country's largest hunger-relief network is also strained.

Feeding America has more than 200 member food banks whose assistance is often easier to obtain than government benefits, including SNAP which some advocates say require burdensome applications. Many families put dinner on the table through a combination of the two — a strategy food bank leaders say could be upended if Republican lawmakers cut SNAP allotments or expand work requirements.

Houston Food Bank CEO Brian Greene expects his organization, which operates the largest distribution among Feeding America partners, to lose somewhere around $4 million this year.

The government pullbacks amp up that pressure. If the cuts stay, Greene said, the projected losses include $3 million for food storage and distribution, $7 million supporting local farmers and producers, and 40 tractor trailer loads a month carrying key produce and protein.

Greene is trying to make up the difference through donations. But he's realistic. Surveys consistently place American philanthropy around 2% of GDP and social services receive just a sliver of that. Even if charitable contributions spiked, he said, they couldn't replace federal support.

That makes SNAP availability even more critical to alleviating hunger. Cutting the program by 11%, he said, would be the equivalent of wiping out every food bank in the United States.

Food purchases are funded through the Farm Bill. Trump's trade war has also generated more money for USDA to buy food commodities under a 1935 program that dedicates tariff collections toward “bonus” food purchases.

What concerns hunger relief groups, however, is that the suspended purchases are covered by a different funding pot that allows the USDA great discretion when responding to economic disruptions. The first Trump administration put more than $2 billion of those funds toward The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP. However, USDA is now reviewing $500 million allocated last fall for the program.

Federal commodities programs provide some of the most reliable supplies of proteins. Vince Hall, who leads government relations for Feeding America, said TEFAP-purchased foods account for more than 20% of everything distributed by the entire network. That number rises in rural communities — where the cost of reaching distant populations is higher and donated products are less available.

The impact trickles down to smaller pantries that rely on larger food banks. Mother Hubbard's Cupboard is bracing for about 25% food reductions from a Feeding America partner in Bloomington, Indiana, if TEFAP cuts distributions.

“What we're likely to see then would be a dip in what are really the nutritional staples that we expect in the pantry,” said Mother Hubbard’s Cupboard President Megan Betz.

A 2022 study measuring food pantries' value suggests participating families obtain between $600 and $1000 annually from them. That's equivalent to a couple months of food for some low-income households, according to co-author David Just, an applied economics professor at Cornell University.

The centers helped cushion families from the pandemic's economic shocks. But food insecurity started rising as the government rolled back its pandemic-era assistance.

Need has surpassed the height of COVID-19, according to Alameda County Community Food Bank Executive Director Regi Young. The weight of the Oakland nonprofit's annual food distributions has doubled its pre-pandemic totals.

Food insecurity nationwide is the highest it's been in about a decade, according to Just, making it “potentially a really difficult time to start cutting food assistance through the pantries.”

“This could cause some pretty significant pain,” he said. "And I don’t know that we’re delivering something more efficient in the end.”

Associated Press journalist Terry Chea in San Francisco contributed to this report.

Associated Press coverage of philanthropy and nonprofits receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content. For all of AP’s philanthropy coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/philanthropy.

CORRECTS TITLE TO CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER FROM EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR - The Campaign Against Hunger Chief Executive Officer Melony Samuels sits in her office in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/James Pollard)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Church members pack groceries in van at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

A volunteer pulls box of produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Alameda resident Beatriz Cortez picks up groceries at the Alameda Food Bank on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Volunteers pack produce at the Alameda County Community Food Bank in Alameda, Calif., on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Alameda resident Beatriz Cortez picks up groceries at the Alameda Food Bank on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

Alameda resident Christina Santamaria stands outside the Alameda Food Bank with groceries and her daughter in Alameda, Calif. on Friday, April 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Terry Chea)

People line up for groceries outside The Campaign Against Hunger's distribution center in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/James Pollard)

Kim Dennis, 65, visits The Campaign Against Hunger's distribution center in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/James Pollard)

The Campaign Against Hunger Executive Director Melony Samuels sits in her office in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 15, 2025. (AP Photo/James Pollard)

RHO, Italy (AP) — No ice is colder and harder than speedskating ice. The precision it takes has meant that Olympic speedskaters have never competed for gold on a temporary indoor rink – until the 2026 Milan Cortina Winter Games.

In the pursuit of maximum glide and minimum friction, Olympic officials brought on ice master Mark Messer, a veteran of six previous Olympic speedskating tracks and the ice technician in charge of the Olympic Oval in Calgary, Canada — one of the fastest tracks in the world with over 300 records.

Messer has been putting that experience to work one thin layer of ice at a time since the end of October at the new Speed Skating Stadium, built inside adjacent trade fair halls in the city of Rho just north of Milan.

“It’s one of the biggest challenges I’ve had in icemaking,’’ Messer said during an interview less than two weeks into the process.

If Goldilocks were a speedskater, hockey ice would be medium hard, for fast puck movement and sharp turns. Figure skating ice would be softer, allowing push off for jumps and so the ice doesn’t shatter on landing. Curling ice is the softest and warmest of all, for controlled sliding.

For speedskating ice to be just right, it must be hard, cold and clean. And very, very smooth.

“The blades are so sharp, that if there is some dirt, the blade will lose the edge,’’ Messer said, and the skater will lose speed.

Speedskater Enrico Fabris, who won two Olympic golds in Turin in 2006, has traded in his skates to be deputy sports manager at the speedskating venue in Rho. For him, perfect ice means the conditions are the same for all skaters — and then if it's fast ice, so much the better.

"It's more of a pleasure to skate on this ice,'' he said.

Messer’s first Olympics were in Calgary in 1988 — the first time speedskating was held indoors. “That gave us some advantages because we didn’t have to worry about the weather, wind blowing or rain,’’ he said. Now he is upping the challenge by becoming the first ice master to build a temporary rink for the Olympics.

Before Messer arrived in Italy, workers spent weeks setting up insulation to level the floor and then a network of pipes and rubber tubes that carry glycol — an antifreeze — that is brought down to minus 7 or minus 8 degrees Celsius (17.6 to 19.4 degrees Fahrenheit) to make the ice.

Water is run through a purification system — but it can’t be too pure, or the ice that forms will be too brittle. Just the right amount of impurities “holds the ice together,’’ Messer said.

The first layers of water are applied slowly, with a spray nozzle; after the ice reaches a few centimeters it is painted white — a full day’s work — and the stripes are added to make lanes.

“The first one takes about 45 minutes. And then as soon as it freezes, we go back and do it again, and again and again. So we do it hundreds of times,’’ Messer said.

As the ice gets thicker, and is more stable, workers apply subsequent layers of water with hoses. Messer attaches his hose to hockey sticks for easier spreading.

What must absolutely be avoided is dirt, dust or frost — all of which can cause friction for the skaters, slowing them down. The goal is that when the skaters push “they can go as far as possible with the least amount of effort,’’ Messer said.

The Zamboni ice resurfacing machine plays a key role in keeping the track clean, cutting off a layer and spraying water to make a new surface.

One challenge is gauging how quickly the water from the resurfacing machine freezes in the temporary rink.

Another is getting the ice to the right thickness so that the Zamboni, weighing in at six tons, doesn’t shift the insulation, rubber tubing or ice itself.

“When you drive that out, if there’s anything moving it will move. We don’t want that,’’ Messer said.

The rink got its first big test on Nov. 29-30 during a Junior World Cup event. In a permanent rink, test events are usually held a year before the Olympics, leaving more time for adjustments. “We have a very small window to learn,’’ Messer acknowledged.

Dutch speedskater Kayo Vos, who won the men’s neo-senior 1,000 meters, said the ice was a little soft — but Messer didn’t seem too concerned.

“We went very modest to start, now we can start to change the temperatures and try to make it faster and still maintain it as a safe ice,’’ he said.

Fine-tuning the air temperature and humidity and ice temperature must be done methodically — taking into account that there will be 6,000 spectators in the venue for each event. The next real test will be on Jan. 31, when the Olympians take to the ice for their first training session.

“Eighty percent of the work is done but the hardest part is the last 20 percent, where we have to try to find the values and the way of running the equipment so all the skaters get the same conditions and all the skaters get the best conditions,’’ Messer said.

AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/milan-cortina-2026-winter-olympics

Serpentines are set on the ice of the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Workers clean the ice surface during a peed skating Junior World Cup and Olympic test event, in Rho, near Milan, Italy, Saturday, Nov. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)

Ice Master Mark Messer poses in the stadium where speed skating discipline of the Milan Cortina 2026 Winter Olympics will take place, in Rho, outskirt of Milan, Tuesday, Nov. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Luca Bruno)