The Food Bank for New York City on Tuesday hosted a pop-up food distribution in Queens for federal workers furloughed during the ongoing government shutdown, as demand for assistance continues to rise across the city.<\/p>\n
Organized with help from Stop & Shop, the event was held outside the Corona SDA Church on 103rd Street, making it easy for government employees at nearby LaGuardia Airport \u2014 including longtime worker Walter Biggett \u2014 to attend.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very uncertain turns right now,\u201d Biggett said. \u201cIt\u2019s a little stressful never knowing when we\u2019re going to get paid so things like this help a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n
What You Need To Know<\/p>\n
The Food Bank for NYC hosted a pop-up food distribution Tuesday in Corona for furloughed federal workers
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The shutdown has left thousands of New York federal employees without paychecks and increased demand for food assistance
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SNAP benefits for 1.8 million New Yorkers could be suspended next month if the shutdown continues
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The Food Bank says no charitable organization can make up for the loss of SNAP, which provides about 95 million meals monthly in NYC<\/p>\n
Biggett, who has worked at LaGuardia for 19 years, said the uncertainty has made it difficult to stay focused on work.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s tough to focus on your job while you\u2019re also trying to focus on worrying about where your next meal is, mortgage, car payments,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The Food Bank for NYC said the event was part of its effort to help the estimated 46,000 federal employees and contractors across the city impacted by the shutdown.<\/p>\n
\u201cFood Bank for NYC is hosting a pop-up distribution specifically for federal workers who have been furloughed so we\u2019ve been in touch with some of the unions,\u201d said Nicole Hunt, director of public policy and advocacy for Food Bank for NYC.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is amazing that they are giving back to us because we try to give back to everyone as well. Being federal workers, especially some of us who are on the front line,\u201d said one federal worker who showed up for the pantry.<\/p>\n
Many government employees have already missed two paychecks, and the shutdown is now threatening to halt Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits next month.<\/p>\n
Nearly 1.8 million New Yorkers rely on SNAP, which provides about 95 million meals per month in the city \u2014 10 million more than all the meals the Food Bank distributed last year.<\/p>\n
The organization says there\u2019s no substitute for SNAP, noting that 50% of the food it distributes is federally funded. While its operations haven\u2019t been affected yet, the federal government canceled several food programs earlier this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just got engaged and I have my wife, and everything, we\u2019re trying to get our own home and everything \u2014 we\u2019re saving up and it\u2019s just a little setback but we\u2019re trying,\u201d Biggett said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Food Bank for New York City on Tuesday hosted a pop-up food distribution in Queens for federal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21572,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[2024,25,9,24,12,26,63,122,124,123,27,200],"class_list":{"0":"post-21571","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-queens","8":"tag-app-in-the-community","9":"tag-app-top-stories","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-city","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-nia-clark","14":"tag-nyc","15":"tag-queens","16":"tag-queens-headlines","17":"tag-queens-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-vod"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21571","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21571"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21571\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21572"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21571"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21571"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21571"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}