St. Louis-area food banks and pantries are overwhelmed.
Operators say their resources, staff and volunteers can’t keep up with the growing need for food.
On May 16, an EF3 tornado decimated thousands of homes in St. Louis, making many people food insecure who were not before.
Then, an already uncertain environment around Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Plan funds became more urgent when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would not fund the food aid program in November due to the government shutdown. All this happened as rising food prices had already created increased demand at pantries.
The shutdown ended Wednesday night, meaning Missourians should soon see their full SNAP benefits restored. But the delay in aid has still been catastrophic, food aid providers said.
“This has been traumatizing for clients. It’s been traumatizing for our pantry,” said Angela Gabel, executive director of the Ritenour Co-Care Food Pantry in Overland. “I just really hope this doesn’t happen again.”
The deal to reopen the government guarantees that SNAP be funded until September 2026. Gabel said she’s worried that a crisis like this could happen again.
Lucy Short, a 32-year-old St. Louis resident who receives SNAP benefits, said not knowing when, or if, she will receive funds this month has put her in a difficult position.
“It definitely makes me a lot more stressed,” Short said. “I think it just kind of puts everyone into survival mode, which is not a healthy place to be living and existing.”
Food aid providers and recipients were plagued with uncertainty and worry regarding SNAP even before the program lost funding.
The Trump administration’s passage of the “One Big Beautiful Bill” in July means several changes to SNAP are coming or have already happened. The bill has led to new work requirements and the elimination of the SNAP-Ed program, which provided nutrition education to low-income families.
Missouri’s new work rules went into effect Nov. 1, requiring that most SNAP recipients work, train or volunteer for at least 20 hours per week to maintain eligibility.
Other changes, such as requiring states to fund part of the program, have yet to go into effect. Darcella Craven, director of government and community relations for the Operation Food Search food bank, said the messaging surrounding these changes is inconsistent, and it’s leaving recipients uneasy about their continuing eligibility.
“The biggest part about this is the miscommunication, the lack of communication and the changing communication. We are having phone calls of people going, ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’” Craven said. “There's so much confusing information out that people are just afraid.”
There are also potential changes to SNAP on a state level. In late September, Gov. Mike Kehoe signed an executive order requiring the state to submit a waiver request to the USDA to alter Missouri’s SNAP program to support the purchase of “minimally processed healthy” foods. If this receives federal approval, the changes would likely go into effect in October 2026.
“The challenge with trying to tell people, ‘Hey, you should only eat healthy food,’ is that we don't give them enough (money) to eat healthy food,” Craven said. “They're going to go and find the things that are going to be the cheapest to get, and those usually are not the healthiest things to eat.”
The combination of confusion surrounding SNAP and the significant cuts and delays this month have put a strain on food pantries and food banks during the already busy holiday season. Gabel said Ritenour has had to lower limits for food per person and has increased its volunteers per shift from about 25 to 35.
Additionally, food aid providers have not recovered from the extra help they had to provide after the May 16 tornado devastated parts of the city.
“We'd already geared up for the season, so now we have to gear up on top of that, to try to find more sources of food and nutritious food to distribute to the community,” said Carlton Adams, chief operating officer at Operation Food Search. “And then, just for good measure, we had a tornado on May 16. Our region hasn't recovered from that. That will honestly take years.”
Many food aid providers said there has been an outpouring of community support. The Foundry partnered with Operation Food Search to host a food drive at the end of October, and several other food drives and food donation bins appeared around the area.
Gabel said that several businesses have sent food to her pantry and that monetary donations have increased.
Operation Food Search Chief Program Officer Melissa Weissler said this awareness is the one positive during the crisis.
“If people did not become aware of problems in May, which many did … I think even more people are aware now,” Weissler said. “People are really listening and people are responding, which is great to see.”
