Support for Agencies During the Shutdown
As we mobilize and prepare for an extended shutdown, at Food Lifeline we want to emphasize that we are here to support your community efforts in any way we can. To that end:
– Our shelves are stocked, and our donation stream is strong. We encourage agencies to order as much food as you are able to. Right now we have capacity for a handful of agencies to make an additional pickup on the weekend.
– We are mobilizing to increase our distributions to the agency network by 20 percent, if need exists and the shutdown continues.
– We are making a special ask to our food donors to help us meet this goal of a 20% increase in food distributions.
– We are exploring a host of other options including extra dock times, additional deliveries, and mobile food distributions and will send updates to you as information becomes available.
Resources we are providing include:
- Food Lifeline’s Agency Relations phone line is available to you as a option to answer questions and help you navigate resources for your agency during the shutdown: 206-492-5530.
- We have a regularly updated list of client resources on our community blog.
- We will continue to advocate to our elected officials for an immediate end to the government shutdown.
What we know about federally funded programs:
- All federal nutrition programs, including SNAP are currently funded through February.
- February SNAP benefits were distributed early on Jan. 20 due to the shutdown. If your clients received benefits early, additional February SNAP benefits will not be distributed. See below for more details.
- If the shutdown continues, it will threaten SNAP benefits in March. Currently, around one million Washingtonians use SNAP to help get the food they need.
- School meal programs and after-school meal programs are currently funded through March.
- Meals on Wheels and CSFP senior food box deliveries are currently funded to continue through March.
- WIC benefits are currently funded to be available through February. WIC clinics will remain open through that time, but a prolonged shutdown could close clinics and limit benefits.
- TEFAP and CSFP commodities should continue with uninterrupted service through the end of February.
- Social Security payments will continue without interruption.