Broad Street Presbyterian Church opened its food pantry for in-person shopping, as it always does on Wednesdays.
Volunteers accompanied shoppers with carts through the room as they grabbed milk, eggs, canned peas and corn, bread and more. The metal shelves were not empty, but they were not overflowing, either, as shopper Myra Vuai, of Columbus, pointed out.
“When I was coming here a couple of years ago, all these shelves were full. And as you can see, they're not. And that's with all the food pantries, no matter where you go,” Vuai said.
Vuai takes care of three grandchildren, as well as her own teenage child. She said she doesn’t know what she would do without resources like the food pantry.
Vuai is also one of the nearly 1.5 million Ohioans enrolled in Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, better known as SNAP.
The program is facing major cuts under the federal budget reconciliation bill that Senate Republicans narrowly passed on Tuesday, thanks to a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
Analysis from the Congressional Budget Office puts SNAP reductions in the bill around $300 billion, and some food policy experts have estimated that one in four people could have their benefits reduced or possibly lose them completely.
That’s because of provisions like increased work requirements and removing protections for veterans, those experiencing homelessness and youth aging out of foster care.
Vuai said she understands why lawmakers want to slash the program.
“A lot of people don't understand that some of these systems...they were supposed to have phased out a long time ago, but they keep rehashing them. So, I understand why,” Vuai said. “It didn't help like they thought it would. People didn't use the system the correct way.”
The Trump administration has already made efforts to place restrictions on the program. Six states have passed restrictions on what people can buy with SNAP, largely targeting sugary foods and drinks like candy, soda, energy drinks and fruit juice.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food and Nutrition Service lauds SNAP food restriction waivers as a “bold reform to strengthen integrity and restore nutritional value,” in the program.
“These waivers are a key step in ensuring that taxpayer dollars provide nutritious options that improve health outcomes within SNAP,” reads USDA’s website.
But Broad Street Presbyterian Food Pantry Director Kathy Kelly-Long paints a different picture.
“The system is broken right now, and taking SNAP benefits away from people is just going to compound the problems we’re already struggling with,” Kelly-Long said.
The Broad Street Presbyterian pantry provides food to about 1,200 families a month, and around 400 food kits to working families and seniors who can’t meet basic needs. Kelly-Long said most are underemployed.
She said need has already grown as pandemic-era support systems have ended. The pantry reports that it served 18,513 households in 2024, a 22% increase from 2023.
Now, Kelly-Long worries that need will be exacerbated if families can’t use SNAP to buy groceries.
“When people lose their SNAP dollars, and can't go to the grocery, they're not gonna have their own money to replace those SNAP dollars. So, they're gonna be going without, or more people are gonna be coming here,” Kelly-Long said. “And at some point, we may not be able to have enough food for everybody who comes here.”
Kelly-Long said the food pantry purchases most of its food at a reduced price through the Mid-Ohio Food Collective, but they still have to operate within a budget. Most of their money comes from donations through the church.
“We can do things like limit the amount of food people get so more families can come, but that's not really better because then they just need to come more often or need to go other places as well,” Kelly-Long said.
Kelly-Long notes that part of the federal government’s proposal is to ask states to assume some of the costs, but states don’t necessarily have the money to do so.
“The whole thing is so wrong in that we're taking food away from hungry people in order to give tax breaks to wealthy people,” Kelly-Long said.
