By Abha Thakkar

November 7, 2025

As many of you know by now, the federal government slowed the flow of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits due to the federal shutdown (though it appears that, as of Friday 11/7, the State of Wisconsin has received the federal funds and will be distributing them), and we were faced with the possibility of a wave of mass hunger throughout our country. Forty-two million people (one out of eight) living in the United States who rely on SNAP have had their food benefits delayed. In Wisconsin in 2024, FoodShare, as SNAP is known here, had 705,400 participants (almost 12% of the state’s population), with 45,000 participants living in Dane County as of 2022. 

This monthly loss of resources also represents hundreds of millions of dollars in Wisconsin alone that go to grocery stores and other private food vendors who accept FoodShare. The nation’s food security system is heavily dependent on direct federal benefits, which puts 10-12 times as many resources into grocery purchasing power for SNAP recipients as it does into the food bank/pantry system. Without federal SNAP benefits, we would be facing both a humanitarian crisis and a major economic loss for food sector businesses whose customers rely on SNAP to make regular purchases.

At this scale, there is no way that local institutions or governments would have been able to compensate for the loss of federal SNAP dollars in the short run, which underscores how quickly individuals and families can slip into food insecurity, especially as the risk of hunger rises with winter, inflation, and the coming holidays. And as families spend more money on food, other bills go unpaid, which leads to a higher risk of health conditions going untreated and households facing eviction and homelessness. The ripple effects are potentially devastating.

The beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic saw a food security crisis on a similar scale, but at the time the underlying cause was the collapse of global and domestic supply chains due to the stay-at-home orders needed around the world to contain the spread of the virus. It was the federal government’s eventual intervention that helped us meet basic needs during the pandemic. But we are now experiencing the withdrawal of that federal safety net.  What happens now?

In this scenario, as at the beginning of Covid-19, mutual aid becomes a critical bridge. By “mutual aid,” we mean organized efforts by community members working together to share resources, time, skills, and support—not charity in the sense of “we help you,” but cooperation in the sense of “we build networked resilience together.”

These strategies don’t require large budgets or big organizations—just coordination, trust, and a willingness to share resources and time. In the face of federal funding disruption, strengthening local mutual aid is not a complete substitute—but it helps cushion the blow, preserve dignity for impacted families, and build community resilience.

With that in mind, here are some grassroots mutual-aid strategies that anyone—even those with limited means—can mobilize right away. Our team offered a workshop at YWCA’s 2025 Racial Justice Summit on mutual aid strategies for food security, and these ideas were generated, in part, by participants at that session:

Check out the following resources for other possibilities:

What ideas do you have for neighbor-to-neighbor support? We can all play a meaningful role in preventing hunger when federal safety nets falter.