California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he will deploy the state\u2019s National Guard and California Volunteers to help food banks.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m expediting state funds for food banks and directing the California National Guard and California Volunteers to help distribute this food to families,\u201d Newsom said in an Oct. 22 news release<\/a>, indicating that the California National Guard will be under his command. \u201cAs we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, California is working to ensure CalFresh recipients don\u2019t go hungry while food prices are spiking under President Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n Want more great food writing and recipes? Sign up for Salon\u2019s free food newsletter<\/a>, The Bite.<\/p>\n The recent move\u00a0comes amid an ongoing government shutdown threatening to halt the CalFresh program. Known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, CalFresh provides food benefits to approximately 5.5 million California residents. On Oct. 10, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), which administers the federal food aid program, issued a letter to regional SNAP directors<\/a>\u00a0saying \u201cthere will be insufficient funds to pay full November SNAP benefits for approximately 42 million individuals across the nation\u201d if the shutdown prevails.<\/p>\n \u201cTrump\u2019s failure isn\u2019t abstract \u2014 it\u2019s literally taking food out of people\u2019s mouths. This is serious, this is urgent \u2014 and requires immediate action,\u201d Newsom stated. \u201cMillions of Americans rely on food benefits to feed their families, and while Republicans in Washington drag their feet, California is stepping up once again to fill in the gaps.\u201d<\/p>\n The governor added that the California National Guard will not be acting as law enforcement. Additionally, Newsom \u201cis fast-tracking upwards of $80 million in state support ahead of funding delays triggered by the shutdown,\u201d per the statement.<\/p>\n Newsom took similar action in March 2020, when he sent the California National Guard to join members of the California Service Corps and volunteers in supporting food bank operations during the pandemic.<\/p>\n The post Gavin Newsom deploys California\u2019s National Guard to aid food banks<\/a> appeared first on Salon.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced Wednesday that he will deploy the state\u2019s National Guard and California Volunteers to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7,9,7734,8,15527,8620,457,2806],"class_list":["post-18377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-national-guard","tag-california-news","tag-california-volunteers","tag-food-banks","tag-gavin-newsom","tag-national-guard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}