Worcester leaders unveil fund to help SNAP recipients; slam President Trump
The City of Worcester announced Thursday the creation of a fund aimed at helping recipients of a federal food aid program set to run out of funding Saturday.
The program in question is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) , which provides benefits to low-income households to help buy groceries.
In Worcester, more than 25 percent of the city’s population are SNAP recipients, according to data from the Department of Transitional Assistance.
More than $1 million has been provided for the newly established fund, which will be overseen by the social services organization, the United Way of Central Massachusetts, City Manager Eric D. Batista told an audience at City Hall Thursday afternoon.
Of the funds, $250,000 was donated by the city, with United Way submitting a matching donation, said Tim Garvin, CEO and president of United Way. The rest of the funding, he said, comes from donors, organizations and philanthropists, such as Cliff Rucker, the owner of the Worcester Railers.
United Way will work with other organizations, such as the Worcester Community Action Center, to help determine people who need SNAP assistance and use the funds to help supplement the money they previously received from the federal government, Garvin explained to MassLive.
“We are going to give some funds to food pantries because not everybody whose hungry has SNAP,” Garvin said.
Additionally, $150,000 will be set aside for Worcester Public School families while $100,000 will be allocated to the Worcester Community Action Center for heating assistance, Batista said.
“As a municipality, we will continue to come to the table and do everything we can to keep our most vulnerable residents fed and warm this winter,” said Batista.
With the federal government still shut down as of Thursday evening, funding for SNAP is set to run dry on Nov. 1.
The Trump administration announced it would not tap about $5 billion in contingency funds to keep benefits active in November, the Associated Press reported.
Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty, U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern, D-2nd District, state Sen. Robyn Kennedy, D-1st Worcester, and other speakers ripped into President Donald Trump and his administration for their decision not to tap into the reserves.
“They are using the shutdown as a pretext to take food off the tables of millions and millions of working families, kids, seniors and veterans — and to take fuel assistance away from struggling folks right as it starts to get cold out," McGovern said. “What a rotten, terrible thing to do,”
The elected officials also rejected the idea of Gov. Maura Healey tapping into the state’s rainy day funds to pay for SNAP benefits, saying the burden falls on the federal government to pay for the program.
“The cruelty of this decision lies with one individual and that’s President Donald Trump,” Kennedy said.
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