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Chicago Tribune
a day ago
- General
- Chicago Tribune
CPS schools to see fewer food options, crossing guard positions because of budget deficit
Amid a $734 million budget deficit and with a little less than a month before it needs to be filled, Chicago Public Schools announced reduced services for the 2025-26 school year, including hot meals for students and custodial operations. The reductions come as CPS has held multiple community meetings and Board of Education discussions attempting to find solutions to the budget shortfall. The budget is required by law to be balanced by Aug. 28. The school year begins Aug. 18. Come the first day of school, students are likely to see reductions in areas beyond the classroom. CPS will operate with changes in reduced lunch staffing, likely to result in simplified menus, fewer hot meal options, or cold meals being served on certain days, according to an update sent out to parents from CPS Chief Operating Officer Charles Mayfield. The district's current after-school meal program, which offers free meals at select schools, will no longer offer hot dinners and instead provide packaged snacks. However, it will continue to offer its free breakfast and lunch program, which provides meals that it said meet federal nutritional standards. CPS provides over 260,000 free meals to students yearly. The after-school supper program varies each year depending on available partnerships and offerings and provided around 430 schools with dinners last year, the district told the Tribune in an email Tuesday. While the school year will begin with snacks instead of suppers, the district will reassess whether it can provide hot suppers later in the year, the email said. Custodial staffing and cleaning schedules will also change. A reduction in staff means a shift in how the district will respond to requests they determine as 'non-emergency maintenance,' though it is unclear what the process will look like, according to the email. Instead, custodial staff will focus on 'essential repairs and maintenance' to create healthy learning environments, Mayfield wrote. Students might also see fewer crossing guards at school after cuts. Given the deficit, the district recently eliminated 102 positions, with 33 of those guards primarily serving private non-CPS schools, according to the email. However, each CPS school will have a crossing guard program. The district did not respond to whether Mayfield's operational changes will save money or help close the budget deficit. CPS has previously stated that it identified over $165 million in potential savings in central office and staffing cuts, reductions to contracts, and limiting operational spending. Twenty-two district schools will also implement new start and end times to allow more buses to run multiple routes in the morning and afternoon. However, transportation to and from some schools could see setbacks despite the bell time changes. New transportation options to and from some schools will start in December, the second half of the school year, despite the bell changes. The district plans to wait to use the Hub Stop transportation system until later in the year, which creates centralized pick-up and drop-off locations at CPS schools, allowing students to meet a bus and be taken to and from school. The system also began last year in the winter. CPS interim Superintendent and CEO Macquline King said she is happy the program is continuing this year, and students eligible for the service will be contacted later this year at last week's board meeting. 'Hub Stops are CPS schools that are selected based on a number of factors, including their bell times, their capacity to support the program and the CPS Opportunity Index,' King said. 'Consistent with previous practice, we will add eligible students in phases, beginning with those students who are most in need.' Eligible students and families can expect to hear about Hub Stop services the week of Nov. 24 and the service is planned to start Dec. 8, according to a CPS update. Within some schools, reduced funding and staffing might mean students are unable to receive school-based vaccines and physical exams. According to its website, there are currently 32 CPS school-based health centers offering services throughout the district, with 15 open to all community members, 15 open to students enrolled at that school, one open to CPS students and family members, and one open to CPS students only. The budget deficit and the need for cost reduction will also affect the technology used across the district. Repairs on network infrastructure may be delayed, Mayfield wrote, and CPS schools might have to use their funding to buy replacement devices. 'We recognize that these changes may create challenges for students and families, and we will work hand-in-hand with our school communities to make the adjustments as smooth as possible,' Mayfield wrote. 'In the coming days, schools will provide more detailed updates and offer support to help navigate these transitions.' In the email, a CPS spokesperson wrote in a statement that the district is taking a student-centered approach to reduce spending. 'These are difficult but necessary decisions,' the spokesperson said. 'No cut to public education is ever made lightly. Every dollar we save centrally helps protect students, teachers, and classrooms from deeper disruption.'
Time of India
a day ago
- General
- Time of India
Chicago's school budget crisis signals trouble ahead for urban public education
As public schools in Chicago prepare to open their doors on August 18, thousands of families are being warned of scaled-back services, fewer hot meals, and delayed maintenance—a stark result of a $734 million budget deficit. The deepening crisis is not just a local concern. Education analysts warn it could be a harbinger of challenges facing urban public school systems across the United States. What's changing in Chicago? In a letter sent last Friday, Charles Mayfield, Chief Operations Officer of Chicago Public Schools (CPS), outlined several cost-saving measures that will take effect this school year. Students and educators alike will feel the changes in daily operations. The most immediate impacts include: Simplified school meals due to a reduction in cafeteria staff. Cold meals will replace hot lunches in many schools. Reduced custodial and engineering staff, leading to delays in non-emergency maintenance and scaled-back cleaning. Cuts to the crossing guard and Safe Passage programs, though every school will retain some form of these services. Limited access to school-based health services, with families being directed to outside providers for vaccinations and physicals. Adjustments to school bell times at 22 schools to optimise transportation. After-school programs that previously provided hot dinners will now offer only packaged snacks. All these changes come on the heels of budget proposals showing 238 fewer lunchroom workers and 220 fewer discretionary support staff compared to last year. A city's struggle, a national warning While CPS has long offered free breakfast and lunch to all students, especially critical in a district where over 70% of students come from low-income households—this year's cuts raise fresh concerns about food insecurity and the learning conditions for vulnerable students. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Most Beautiful Women In The World Undo Urban education experts say Chicago's current situation reflects broader issues many large districts face: Rising costs tied to inflation, staffing, and school safety Reduced federal pandemic-era funding Shifting financial responsibilities from city governments to school districts, as seen when Chicago transferred the $14 million cost of crossing guards to CPS during the pandemic Uncertainty ahead With CPS yet to unveil its full 2025–26 budget, questions remain about whether more cuts are on the horizon. The district has not clarified whether the changes outlined last week reflect previously announced staff reductions or additional cutbacks. Parents are expected to receive campus-specific updates in the coming days. Mayfield acknowledged the strain these measures may place on families but reiterated that the district's core mission remains unchanged: providing every student with a safe, high-quality education. The national picture Chicago's situation is not unique. Other major urban districts, from Los Angeles to Philadelphia, have reported funding gaps, aging infrastructure, and shrinking staff pools, all while serving large populations of high-need students. Without stable long-term funding models, experts worry that patchwork solutions will only delay deeper systemic issues. The message from Chicago is clear: When a city's public education system is forced to make cuts this severe, it signals broader trouble ahead for how urban America funds—and values—its public schools. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Chicago Tribune
5 days ago
- Business
- Chicago Tribune
Editorial: With a month to go before CPS must approve a budget, leaders' lack of seriousness is on display
When can a budget crisis not fairly be called a crisis? Perhaps when the crisis is something that's been obviously coming for months, if not years, and demanded action long ago. Members of the Chicago Board of Education appointed by Mayor Brandon Johnson, as well as the interim Chicago Public Schools CEO hired out of Johnson's administration, are calling for Gov. JB Pritzker to order a special session of the legislature to bail out a district facing what it says is a $734 million budget hole for the coming school year. The requests for the special session came this week, a little over a month before the Aug. 28 deadline for the school board to finalize its budget. Needless to say, there won't be a special session. Pritzker and the Democratic leaders of both the House and Senate have made it clear repeatedly that the state itself is tapped out and can't furnish hundreds of millions to bail out CPS. That school board President Sean Harden, who serves as the mayor's chief CPS mouthpiece, would seek a special session at this late stage is revealing of how unserious Johnson and his allies are about properly managing a system that by any measure is tremendously bloated. The time for legislative sessions, special or otherwise, was months and months ago. The mayor, in fact, didn't include a CPS bailout among his requests for help from Springfield in the past spring session — precisely because he knew it would go nowhere and might jeopardize his other asks. So, as Johnson has demanded in vain for over a year, Harden and other mayoral allies on the board once again are talking about taking on hundreds of millions more in high-priced debt just to get through the next school year without having to make meaningful budget cuts. And, unlike in the spring, when a minority of school board members took advantage of a supermajority requirement for budget amendments and rejected Harden's request for authority to go deeper into debt, this time around Harden needs only a simple majority to add more liabilities to the balance sheet of the nation's largest municipal junk-bond issuer. Meeting that threshold likely won't be a problem. Eleven of 21 board members are Johnson appointees. Of the 10 elected in November, seven consistently have resisted Johnson and Harden's reckless financial maneuvers to date. But that's not enough opposition to stop CPS from lurching substantially further toward insolvency if Harden and interim school Superintendent Macquline King choose that route. For CPS, there's a short-term issue and there's a long-term issue. Both should concern every Chicagoan. Over the longer haul, the district will have to consolidate a large number of schools and rationalize its workforce. As it stands, CPS is sized for a student population far larger than the 325,000 actually attending Chicago's public schools today. We will have more to say on that larger matter later. The short-term problem — next year's shortfall — can be addressed in part by forcing the city of Chicago to pay the $175 million Mayor Johnson has insisted CPS should shoulder for the Municipal Employees' Annuity and Benefit Fund, a pension fund serving nonteaching employees of CPS, as well as some workers for the city and other agencies. By state law, that pension plan is the city's obligation, but Johnson and his predecessor, Lori Lightfoot, strived to get CPS to take on some of the plan's funding responsibility. CPS did so in years when it was flush with federal pandemic cash, but refused to do so last year so that it could pay for teacher raises negotiated as part of a new four-year collective bargaining agreement. Given the district's financial strains, there's no good reason to float junk-rated debt to cover that cost now, especially when not obligated by law. So without the $175 million pension payment, the true deficit should be more like $559 million. That's not a small amount to cut, even in a budget well exceeding $9 billion. But, still. This predicament could be seen a mile away, and Johnson — backed by his former employer and erstwhile ally, the Chicago Teachers Union — has insisted since taking office on generous yearly raises for teachers who already are among the nation's highest-paid while also opposing the consolidation of any schools and associated job reductions. About a third of CPS schools are at less than half of student capacity, and many are at a third or lower. The CTU/Johnson strategy from the beginning has been to do next to nothing about a foreseeably dire budget situation — in fact, make it significantly worse — and wait until the crisis got so acute that the state or some other benefactor would swoop in to the rescue. That's fiscal and managerial malfeasance. Why should it be rewarded? Oh, yes. The children. Perhaps the most pernicious facet of this game-of-chicken strategizing is that hundreds of thousands of Chicago students rely on CPS, and the city's future depends in no small part on giving those kids a good education. By now, a majority of Chicagoans have caught on to CTU's true purpose, which is to bolster its membership ranks no matter how low CPS' student population drops. That doesn't stop union leaders, of course, from attempting to paint those who reject the never-ending requests for hundreds of millions or even billions in tax increases as cold-hearted opponents of educating Chicago's kids. But the rhetoric increasingly doesn't land, especially given how CTU's very own former organizer sits on the fifth floor. We feel terrible for the families who will bear the brunt of the likely cutbacks to come. But this challenging upcoming school year unfortunately is the price we will have to pay for epic mismanagement. Once they see no knight in shining armor coming to the rescue, these unserious people tasked with running our schools finally must take some accountability and begin the process of making difficult decisions about the future of CPS within the means available to support it.
Fox News
23-07-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Chicago Public Schools agrees to pay feds back $1 million over misallocated grants
FIRST ON FOX – The Chicago Public Schools district and the Department of Education (ED) reached an agreement to pay back over $1 million after issues arose when the district reported their Native Indian student population when applying for federal grants. Documents obtained by Fox News Digital show that the ED's Office of Inspector General found that Chicago Public Schools were counting South Asian students from Myanmar, Pakistan and Nepal as Native Americans to receive additional federal funding. The repayment of funds is not considered a fine because the amount owed by the school district resulted from an agreement between the school district and the ED. Chicago Public Schools officials received federal funding from the Indian Education Formula Grant, which provides educational and cultural programming to students of Native American and Alaska Native Ancestry. The American Indian Education Program, managed by Chicago Public Schools' Office of Language and Cultural Education, received an annual grant from the ED's Office of Indian Education – the program's primary subsidy. In order to obtain funds, the Office of Indian Education would allocate an amount based on the total number of students enrolled in Chicago Public School's American Indian Education Program. Students are required to be of Native American ancestry. The case first opened in 2021, when the ED Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed data from Chicago Public School's student database showing over 1,000 students who identified as Native American. The investigation highlighted that several students' surnames indicated that they were of South Asian ancestry, specifically natives of India, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Nepal, and Pakistan. In 2024, the OIG investigation concluded the program manager and school district "intentionally" submitted and certified false information to the federal government for years. Chicago Public Schools' reporting of the information resulted in about $140,000 more federal funds than they were entitled to during the 2022-2023 and 2023-2024 school years. The ED investigation discovered further that hundreds of thousands of undeserved federal funding was granted to the district prior to 2022. The investigation estimated a total of more than $1.1 million in misallocated funds over the past decade. The Chicago Public School District is already facing enrollment struggles, budget woes, and had tensions with the teachers' union during their contract negotiations. The school district told Fox News Digital that at no point did CPS officials misidentify students by race or ethnicity. Contrary to what the OIG report states, CPS officials claimed there was no misclassification of South Asian students as American Indian. They also said they worked closely and cooperatively with the ED's Office of Indian Education to "review past practices and implement a stronger, more accurate system for collecting voluntary tribal enrollment information." "This includes clear protocols for verifying tribal membership through federally-recognized documentation from the student, parent, or grandparent through a voluntary process at each school," the spokesperson added. "The District is also enhancing training, data collection, and engagement efforts through the CPS Office of Multilingual-Multicultural Education (OMME), the Office of Family and Community Engagement (FACE), and other departments that work with Native families." CPS officials told Fox News Digital that ED's Office of Indian Education has commended them for "ongoing cooperation and for proactively addressing these issues." CPS said they will not apply for the American Indian Education grant for Fiscal Year 2026 to proceed with caution and to ensure full compliance in the future. "CPS has agreed to repay funds to the federal government because the District could not fully verify historical documentation related to the collection and submission of data confirming the identification of American Indian students as part of the District's application for the American Indian Education grant," the spokesperson said. However, an ED spokesperson who sent Fox News Digital the documents accused CPS of "knowingly submitting and certifying false information about their student population." Reacting to the CPS statement, the ED spokesperson doubled down, referring to the OIG investigation which "found that CPS's American Indian Education Program, at the direction of Program Manager (redacted), has continued to submit false program enrollment on federal grant applications in 2022, 2023, and 2024, even after OIG reported in 2021 that (redacted) and the AIEP have been significantly misstating program enrollment data on grant applications for several years."
Chicago Tribune
20-07-2025
- Politics
- Chicago Tribune
In the wake of SNAP cuts, feeding hungry Illinoisans falls more than ever on food pantries
Natasha McClendon had $20 in her bank account and a bag of chicken in her fridge. It wasn't going to be enough to feed her three daughters, her husband and herself, which meant it was time to take her monthly visit to the St. Sabina parish food pantry. She took the bus to St. Sabina from her home on the South Side, a two-story duplex the McClendons share with a transition house. Her husband, Eric, suffers from Morquio syndrome — a birth defect that manifests like severe scoliosis — and is unable to work. Most of his disability check goes towards their $750 rent. Natasha McClendon is a substitute teacher at Chicago Public Schools. She makes around $211 a week during the school year. She hasn't had a paycheck since June. 'We barely get any help from anyone,' she said. In the last several months, the McClendons have watched their government food assistance shrink. In December, Natasha McClendon took to shopping once a month at her church's food pantry to keep her family fed, supplementing what she could afford from Food4Less and Jewel-Osco. But there are still days she worries her kids are hungry. Now, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, faces its largest cut in its history under President Donald Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill,' signed into law on Independence Day. By cutting $200 billion out of SNAP, the bill, officially called HR-1, pushes the burden to feed hungry Americans even further onto nonprofit food pantries, which could mean less food for people like the McClendons. As nonprofits reliant on donations, food banks and pantries were already stretched thin before the bill passed. Volunteers said they see more American families fall into food insecurity every day. As long as shoppers fit a certain criteria, pantries typically don't turn them away — but as demand grows, each family gets less to eat. Thousands of Illinoisans will be directly affected by Trump's SNAP cuts, which means thousands more people relying on food pantries, which means less food for everyone. Unless thousands more donations appear. 'We certainly need the support of the larger Chicago community to provide what we believe is going to be an exponential increase in need,' said Mitzi Baum, interim CEO at Chicago food nonprofit Nourishing Hope. A small, red-brick building, the St. Sabina parish pantry stands on West 79th Street, wedged in next to its partner church. The only clue of its existence is the small cluster of people holding shopping bags outside the door. Until recently, Natasha McClendon had never shopped at St. Sabina's — she visited the parish only as a churchgoer. Her $1,100 SNAP benefits had been enough to feed the family for the most part. She first visited St. Sabina parish food pantry on Dec. 10, the day she opened a letter from the Illinois Department of Human Services informing her that after IDHS did its routine reevaluation of her family's needs, it would limit their SNAP benefits to $660 a month. 'They're picking on us working people,' Natasha McClendon said. When the door swung open right at 9 a.m. on June 23, the line of South Side residents signed their names on a clipboard in the lobby area, a small space with white walls that resembles a doctor's office waiting room. Many of the shoppers seemed to know what they were doing, but others asked questions uncertainly as they navigated their first visit. Natasha McClendon shopped in a room set up like a U, where smiling volunteers handed Natasha her choices from each station. She could choose four vegetables, two fruits, two bread products, one meat and three miscellaneous items, but that was the daily limit. She took her time going through the options on each shelf, looking for the food items her kids would eat. Some sections were more empty than others; Nice! Fruit Circles crowded the cereal shelf, but the canned vegetable section only offered pumpkin and green beans. Her cart looked full when she had finished her lap, but she stared woefully down at her food. It would only feed her family for a couple of days, and she would have to wait until July to come back. Most Chicago food pantries can only afford to allow visits once a month. She has two grown children as well as her three young daughters who live at home. Natasha McClendon graduated from Kennedy-King College in 1999 with a baby and an associate's degree in preschool education. Although she's been applying to jobs, she is limited by various medical issues, including a tic disorder, Achilles tendonitis and other complications that make it difficult for her to work on her feet. 'I've had some battles, but I fought them,' she said. In March, IDHS budgeted each member of the McClendon family for less than $6 of food per day. St. Sabina is one of the 800 organizations served by the Greater Chicago Food Depository, which distributes food to pantries in communities all over the city. The Greater Chicago Food Depository and its sister organization, the Northern Illinois Food Bank, have felt the effects of rising grocery prices for months. The United States is still dealing with supply chain issues from COVID-19, unhelped by Trump's tariffs, climate change and even the war in Ukraine. 'This is a perfect storm,' said Lindsay Allen, a health economist and policy researcher at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. 'It's the worst storm ever.' Eggs, dairy, meat and fresh produce: These words are motifs in conversations between pantry operators, experts and shoppers. Everybody is struggling to afford them; in fact, the Greater Chicago Food Depository stopped buying eggs for its partners. Food insecurity stretches into the suburbs and small towns across the state. John and Loretta Arient bear daily witness to rising food insecurity in their small Illinois community. The Arients named Stone Soup, their NIFB-affiliated pantry and soup kitchen in Marengo, after the children's tale about neighbors sharing food. When the Arients first moved to Marengo, there were a couple of grocery stores and a decent pharmacy. Now, they call Marengo a 'food desert' because it has only two places to buy groceries. Options in the town include a Sullivan's Foods, a Family Dollar and two pantries. When people can't afford food from the first two options, they turn to the latter. 'Small towns are taking a hit and small businesses are taking a hit and things are shutting down,' Loretta Arient said. The Arients helped found the Stone Soup kitchen in 2014. Every Tuesday between Memorial Day and early September, John Arient and three other volunteers cook four kinds of soup in the kitchen at Marengo United Methodist Church. In 2017, Stone Soup expanded to give out boxes of food on Mondays, which include produce, meat, bread, cereal and pasta. The boxes are supposed to provide three days' worth of food. Stone Soup does not have qualifying requirements; it feeds between 150 and 180 families every Monday. 'We take care of the needy and the greedy, and we let God sort them out,' John said. In the weeks leading up to Trump signing HR-1, Natasha McClendon was afraid that her SNAP benefits would be further diminished. She thought she would be subject to harsher work requirements. And like so many other SNAP recipients — and pantry owners, as well as the politicians writing the bill — Natasha McClendon was confused. She didn't know what was going to happen. Food banks and pantries were sure of one thing: Food insecurity was about to turn from bad to worse. On July 4, Congress voted to extend work requirements to adults aged 55-64 and parents of children older than 13. Natasha McClendon's two younger daughters are 9 and 12, so her status with work requirements will not change. Yet the McClendons will suffer from the strain on their neighborhood food pantry as it becomes the only institution left to feed people losing SNAP benefits. 'I don't want to have to put a 'No Food' sign on the door,' said Tim Allison, executive director of social services at St. Sabina. Allen, of Northwestern University, explained the inefficacy of work requirements for food assistance programs. To work, people need to eat. The 'Big, Beautiful Bill' threw hungry Americans into a catch-22: You can't afford to eat unless you work — but it's hard to work hungry. 'By taking away nutrition and by taking away health care from people, we are pretty much making it impossible for them to work,' Allen said. SNAP's purpose, she said, is to provide stability during times of economic instability. And the economy, right now, feels unstable to many, as grocery prices rise and the job market goes on a diet. As demand for food assistance rises — and it will — supplies diminish. Stone Soup has had to lower its quality standards in the wake of rising grocery prices. Its Monday food boxes, these days, have less fresh produce and more canned ingredients, according to Loretta Arient. Stone Soup could also use more storage and extra hands; as of now, the Arients, who are both retired, do most of the pantry's food pickups in their silver 2016 Honda Odyssey. 'I can see this almost taking us to a screeching halt,' John Arient said of HR-1. On top of needing more helping hands, food donations and money, food pantries will need more storage space and larger fridges and freezers to keep up with the thousands of people who will turn to them for nourishment. Julie Yukro, president and CEO of the Northern Illinois Food Bank, said she expects between 60,000 to 80,000 more Illinoisans in the region to start relying on her organization. One of those Illinoisans, Terry Roman, has a little gray card with purple and blue stripes tucked into his very old wallet. The small rectangle, more like a gift card than a credit card, carries the repercussions of Trump's 'Big, Beautiful Bill.' At 59, Roman falls into the risky age group between 55 and 64 who are now subject to work requirements nationwide. He doesn't have a disability exemption so unless that changes or he miraculously finds 80 hours of work per month, his gray plastic card will stop feeding him. For the last year and a half, Roman has received $292 in SNAP benefits each month. He retired two years ago from driving a truck after working for more than 40 years, in part because of a bad knee. Roman doesn't get disability for the knee because the issue has yet to be diagnosed. He works odd jobs to make ends meet while living in interim housing in Downers Grove that doesn't charge him rent. Roman buys most of his groceries with his SNAP money — for now. When Trump signed HR-1, he put a timer on Roman's benefits. So far, experts don't know when the timer will hit zero. 'They got eggs today!' The tall woman in the red dress turned excitedly to share the news. Nourishing Hope's Sheridan Market location, a GCFD partner, hadn't had eggs the last several times Bridget Woods went shopping. That Thursday evening at Sheridan Market was loud. Families chattered in the waiting area, volunteers asked shoppers their preferences and Judy Freebus, speaking Russian, was engaged in a bilingual conversation with an elderly Ukrainian woman at the check-in station. The shelves at this location were full-to-bursting at 5 p.m., prepared to feed 318 neighbors with 15 days' worth of groceries for each household. Nourishing Hope is one of Chicago's most efficient food pantries. It provides groceries for more than 4.5 million meals a year, with two pantry sites as well as an online market that allows shoppers to pre-order groceries and pick them up in a car. GCFD provides 62% of groceries, but Nourishing Hope also gets substantial food donations from Sam's Club, Target and Trader Joe's. Woods has shopped at Nourishing Hope pantries for more than 10 years now. Her SNAP benefits amount to only $34 a month, which has never been enough. She wasn't sure if her access to SNAP would be affected by HR-1. 'If it (does get) affected, I won't miss nothing,' Woods said as she scrutinized a selection of cheese. 'Nope, not that,' she said as an eager volunteer proffered a ball of mozzarella. 'Put that back.' Nourishing Hope's lush shelves have been life-sustaining for many Chicagoans, and now they, too, are at risk. Angela Cimarusti-Clifford, Nourishing Hope's senior manager of pantry programs, said the pantry hasn't experienced immediate effects of HR-1 but is preparing for them to hit. When SNAP was cut in the past, the impact followed shortly after. Yet the July day Bridget Woods went shopping, for the first time in months, Sheridan Market had eggs. Just one carton per household — but eggs nonetheless. Woods didn't know where the eggs came from. Maybe a grocery donation. Maybe a generous neighbor. Perhaps the staff at Nourishing Hope bought the eggs themselves. Whoever it was — someone saw the need, and filled it. Nourishing Hope will keep feeding its neighbors, even as its burden becomes heavier than ever.
