Food programs face more cuts

By Katherine Warren

Smoke Signals staff member

Healthy Food Boxes, a popular monthly program for Tribal members that is grant funded, will not continue after August.

Tribal Council has said it hopes to find a way to continue funding the boxes.

Additionally, local food pantries are also feeling the federal funding cuts and increased costs elsewhere.

Grand Ronde Food Bank (iskam mǝkʰmǝk-haws) Coordinator Francene Ambrose said, “We have seen a decrease in food available from Marion-Polk Food Share, from the grocery stores and no money donations for food purchases…We went from three pallets of food per week to one pallet per week.”

The food bank fiscal year ended Monday, June 30, and the new budget began Tuesday, July 1. Ambrose said the pantry can use donations of proteins such as canned tuna, peanut butter, meats in a can and easy to prepare shelf-stable meals.

GrandShermina Food Bank in Sheridan is cutting back on its food distributions, effective immediately. The organization will be doing distributions on the first and third Tuesday of the month instead of their weekly distributions.

Rick Gaupo, president of Marion-Polk Food Share, said that the funding cuts equal half of what the food share received from the federal government last year. Most of the cuts were to frozen meat, eggs and dairy products.

The recent congressional bill, approved by both the House and the Senate, includes an approximately $200 billion cut over the next 10 years to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) as well as an approximately $930 billion cut over the next 10 years to Medicaid. Both of these programs directly affect low-income families, who often rely on food banks.