FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 A Fort Myers-based food pantry is expanding services to help families amid uncertainty around federal food aid. <\/p>\n
WATCH: Non-profit helps fill need during government shutdown: <\/p>\n
Fort Myers food pantry expands service amid SNAP uncertainty<\/p>\n
The Community Cooperative said it plans to open two pop-up food pantries in partnership with the Boys and Girls Club of Lee County. CEO Stefanie Ink Edwards said the cooperative originally planned to open one, but the group has recently seen increased need. <\/p>\n
\u201cMobile pantries is something we do on a regular basis, so it\u2019s easy for us to load up all the volunteers, and the food, and the supplies and we\u2019re going to go to them,\u201d Ink Edwards said. <\/p>\n
The first pop-up pantry will be at the Boys and Girls Club in the Renaissance Preserve Community on Friday, Nov. 7, from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., according to the group. The second pantry will be at the Boys and Girls Club off Park Meadow Drive in Fort Myers on Monday, Nov. 10 from 5:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m.<\/p>\n
SNAP benefits were scheduled to end Saturday because of the government shutdown. On Friday, two federal judges ruled the Trump administration can’t suspend those benefits. Payments could still be temporarily reduced under the ruling.<\/p>\n
Ink Edwards spoke with FOX 4 before the court decisions. <\/p>\n
The Community Cooperative CEO says the shutdown is shifting the burden to non-profits.<\/p>\n
“There’s over three million people in the state of Florida alone who utilize SNAP benefits,” Ink Edwards said. “If those suddenly go away, there’s going to be a lot of pressure on small non-profits like us.”<\/p>\n
The group served almost 200 households in Lehigh Acres on Tuesday, Ink Edwards said \u2013 the non-profit had to turn away another 50 to 70 households.<\/p>\n
The cooperative’s mission is to end hunger and homelessness, Ink Edwards said. It\u2019s been operating for more than 40 years.<\/p>\n
The cooperative runs multiple programs to help families in need, including the Community Market on Demand off Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. It\u2019s a food pantry that offers a grocery store-like experience for clients, Ink Edwards said.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing to a food pantry can be an extremely humbling experience if your family is in crisis and in need, especially if you\u2019ve never been here before,\u201d Ink Edwards said. \u201cSo we want to make sure that it\u2019s a really positive experience in every way possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clients make an appointment to visit the cafe. The cooperative also plans to expand appointment times. <\/p>\n
\u201cA situation like this is something that really keeps a non-profit leader like me up at night, because it\u2019s going to be a really hard thing for us to accomplish,\u201d Ink Edwards.<\/p>\n
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. \u2014 A Fort Myers-based food pantry is expanding services to help families amid uncertainty around…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29778,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,15135,409,4489,12440,264,2582,356,21723,414,4294],"class_list":["post-29777","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-community-cooperative","tag-donald-trump","tag-downtown-fort-myers-florida","tag-food-pantry","tag-fox-4","tag-government-shutdown","tag-lee-county","tag-mlk-boulevard","tag-snap","tag-wftx"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29777","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29777"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29777\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29778"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29777"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29777"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29777"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}