Utah News Dispatch
Utah Food Bank says filling food assistance gap will take ‘all of us coming together’
A volunteer reaches for broccolini at the food pantry run by Good Neighbors Community Kitchen and Food Pantry in East Providence, Rhode Island on Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2025. The food pantry saw high demand with the looming possibility that funding will run out Nov. 1 for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program because of the federal government shutdown. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current)
The Utah Food Bank is working to bring in more donations and push them out to its network of pantries around the state, anticipating a jump in demand when about 87,000 Utah households go without food assistance next month.
Meeting the need won’t be easy, said Ginette Bott, the food bank’s president and CEO. She and her employees were hammering out the logistics Thursday of how to ramp up their work with their existing staff and fleet of trucks.
“We can ask for more donations of food, but we have no guarantee those donations will come,” Bott added.
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Utah’s Department of Workforce Services, which manages the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, in the state announced Wednesday that November payments will not be made because of the government shutdown.
Utah Senate President Stuart Adams said the state “is not equipped to fund federal programs for weeks or months in the absence of congressional action.” The stalemate is now in its 23rd day.
Some Utahns enrolled in SNAP receive payment on the 11th or 15th of every month. Others get theirs on the 5th, meaning they’ll feel the effects in less than two weeks.
The amount varies, depending on a household’s net income. For a family of four, the maximum monthly allotment is about $1,000; for an individual, the cap is just under $300.
Across Utah’s 29 counties, the food bank distributes to 309 local agencies. All have limited resources, Bott said.
“They don’t have a lot of storage space, they don’t have a lot of refrigeration. Many of them are staffed by volunteers,” Bott said.
Some pantries may have to reduce the number of times people can visit every month, she said, which will impose extra challenges for Utahns living far from grocery and big box stores.
“Not only is it incredibly frustrating, it’s incredibly sad,” Bott said.
As need increases, the nonprofit Switchpoint’s two pantries in St. George and Tooele may have to transition from clients choosing their own groceries to receiving prepackaged boxes in an effort to better ration donated items, said Switchpoint spokesperson Zachary Almaguer.
“We will do everything in our power not to turn individuals away,” Almaguer added, noting the organization also operates kitchens serving free meals in both cities.
“We’re watching closely, we are concerned, but we’re doing our best not to listen to what might be or what could be, but we’re planning for what we know we can do,” Almaguer said.
For Bott, the pause in benefits reminds her in some ways of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, when many Utahns were suddenly out of work and visited food pantries to get by.
Asked if her organization can fill the need next month, she said no one entity can do it alone. She noted churches and faith-based organizations in the state also accept and distribute grocery donations.
Said Bott: “It’s going to take all of us coming together to be able to make the best situation that we possibly can for people.”
