A statewide food drive launched Tuesday is intended to help fill gaps left behind by the pause in federal food assistance and the start of Virginia’s own aid program, according to a press release from the governor’s office.
The campaign, called the Virginia Cares Initiative, connects residents with the food bank in their region and provides them with a list of high-demand food items, drop-off locations and open hours to make donating straightforward.
To enroll, residents can visit the Virginia Cares Initiative website, enter their contact information and select the region they’d like to donate to. From there, residents are matched with one of seven regional food banks that collect the donations and distribute them to a network of more than 1,000 food pantries across the state.
On Monday, Virginia became the first state to fund food assistance for the month of November, while the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, is paused due to the federal government shutdown. The commonwealth’s temporary emergency food program is called Virginia Emergency Nutrition Assistance, or VENA, and is available to all Virginia residents who were enrolled in SNAP in October.
Unlike SNAP, which provided benefits once per month, VENA funds are distributed on a weekly basis in smaller increments, which may disrupt meal planning schedules for recipients. Also unlike SNAP, VENA is not able to enroll new participants throughout the month. That leaves newly eligible Virginians in limbo, including federal employees who may experience food insecurity as the shutdown continues, according to the governor’s press release.
“The Virginia Cares Initiative ensures that our communities can step forward to bridge that gap, especially as we approach Thanksgiving,” Gov. Glenn Youngkin said in the release.
The initiative provides needed aid to the nonprofits and community organizations that make up the emergency food network that is already spread thin, Eddie Oliver, executive director of the Federation of Virginia Food Banks, said in the press release.
“Our food banks and network of 1,150 pantry partners are facing a perfect storm of challenges,” Oliver said. “We are grateful for the Governor’s leadership in establishing VENA and ensuring food banks have additional resources to meet the record high demand we are experiencing across the Commonwealth.”
Meanwhile, outside Virginia’s borders, uncertainty remains regarding how and when SNAP benefits will resume. Two federal judges issued rulings Friday requiring the government to keep SNAP running, and the Trump administration announced Monday that it will partially fund SNAP for November.
It’s not clear how much assistance SNAP recipients will receive nor how quickly those benefits will hit the cards that recipients use to buy groceries, according to the Associated Press. The process of loading SNAP cards can take up to two weeks in some states, the AP reported, and court filings warned that it could take weeks or even months for states to make the system changes necessary to send out reduced benefits.
The partial funding will come from a $4.65 billion emergency fund — which covers about half of what’s needed for the more than $8 billion in SNAP benefits issued per month nationally, according to the AP.
Youngkin spokesman Peter Finocchio confirmed in an email Tuesday that the first VENA benefits were issued Monday and the rest will be distributed as scheduled this week. A distribution schedule is available on the Virginia Department of Social Services’ website.
“We continue to work closely with our federal partners and will provide updates as federal guidance changes,” Finocchio said.
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