WACO, Texas (KWTX) – News that the U.S. Department of Agriculture has halted $500 million in deliveries to food banks nationwide, has some food banks worries.
As grocery prices remain high, some food banks say people living in poverty won’t be getting as much food as they need.
CEO of Shepherd’s Heart, Robert Gager said thankfully, the non-profit has contracts through the state, so the nonprofit won’t be affected right now.
However, he worries for the food pantries that aren’t in the same position as the organization.
He said Shepherd’s Heart’s mission is to feed as many people as possible.
“Thank you, we get a lot of thank you’s and appreciation,” said Gager.
Gager said Shepard’s Heart fed over 104,000 central Texas families last year, and said that’s around 5 million pounds of food.
“And just for the first two months of this year, I’m surprisingly 11% ahead of where I was at the same time last year,” said Gager.
He said he respects the Department of Government Efficiency for cleaning up money that has been wasted but said food banks are essential.
“I can tell you there will be a lot of people like me and the food bank that are going to be pestering these guys in Washington saying, ‘Uh,uh, you can’t afford to cut that stuff.’ You can’t waste this food because we have a group of people here across this country that needs this kind of help.”
Gager said the after affects can trinkle down to the youth as well.
“We need to do something to not lose that money so that we can keep going. We cannot cut money from school kids’ funding and not feed those kids. If we do that, we screw up the next generation. If we don’t feed them right, they’re not going to grow up right, they’re not going to be healthy,” said Gager.
The recent cuts are the Trump administration’s attempts to, “claw back CCC money the Biden administration previously allocated in order to devote funds to other priorities.”
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