Wyoming Food Bank CEO: ‘People Are Scared To Death’

– Food Bank CEO: “People Are Scared to Death” (Infowars, Nov 11, 2013):

Demand for food overwhelms pantries in Wyoming

The CEO of a major food bank in Wyoming warns that “people are scared to death” over the impact of a stimulus withdrawal which has left millions of Americans short of groceries, as demand begins to overwhelm food banks in the state and across the country.

Jay Martin, CEO of Joshua’s Storehouse in Casper, Wyoming told the Star-Tribune that the number of families using the food bank in October was already significantly up from a year ago and that the November 1st food stamp cut caused “an immediate upswing” in demand.

“People are scared to death of the lack of food availability,” Martin said.

Food banks across the state have also seen hikes in demand since the beginning of the month. “And we expect to see an increase for the rest of the year,” said Brittany Ogden, office manager for the Food Bank of Sweetwater County, which has seen 90 new families needing assistance in 2013.

From November 1st, $5 billion was wiped off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as a result of a planned stimulus withdrawal. Almost 50 million Americans who are supported by the program face an average loss of $36 dollars a month, which is a significant amount for those living near the poverty line. Additional cuts are also in the pipeline.

The Northeast Iowa Food Bank has also seen a spike in demand for food, with a 50 per cent increase in October before the food stamp cut even took effect. “The numbers are all up even without the cuts,” NEIFB executive director Barb Prather told the WCF Courier.

“The need is just huge,” said Rev. Debra Lincoln of Jordan River, the church that operates the food bank, “We have new people, new families everyday.”

Meanwhile, Margarette Purvis, president and CEO of the Food Bank for New York City, gave a speech yesterday in which she drew attention to the fact that 40 per cent of veterans in New York City were relying on soup kitchens and pantries, and that these numbers would grow with the cut in food stamps.

Purvis previously warned that millions of Americans going hungry could lead to civil unrest when she told Salon.com, “If you look across the world, riots always begin typically the same way: when people cannot afford to eat food.”

Last week, CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey Val Traore warned that the $5 billion welfare cut is causing a “nightmare ripple effect” for both businesses and hungry citizens in the region.

As the New York Post highlights today, some of the money that was withdrawn from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program was used to pay for Michelle Obama’s ‘Let’s Move’ campaign.

“Some of the funding [for the lunch program] comes from rolling back temporary increases in food-stamp benefits,” Barack Obama said back in 2010, adding that the cuts would start in the fall of 2013.

“It’s come to this. Some 76 million meals a year will vanish from this city — poof! — partly because the president diverted money from SNAP to the first lady’s signature program, part of her Let’s Move anti-obesity initiative — the bean-sprout-heavy, $4.5 billion Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act,” writes Andrea Peyser.