Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio, which supplies food stocks to over 130 partner charities in Lorain, Erie, Huron, and Crawford Counties, has withdrawn more than $500,000 from its emergency funds to meet increased need in the wake of the government shutdown, according to the organization’s Communications & Development Coordinator Emily Faust. The funds — released following special approval from the charity’s Board of Directors — have been put toward the purchase of 750,000 pounds of additional food for the center’s stocks.
“This created a huge burden on the food pantry network,” Julie Chase-Morefield, president and CEO of Second Harvest’s North Central Ohio branch, said. “Those food pantries, [which] always see high need in October and November, have seen incredible numbers of people coming in for food assistance.”
At Second Harvest’s warehouse outside of Amherst, palettes of shelf-stable goods stretched toward the ceiling. The center normally receives a large proportion of its supplies from federal shipments provided under the Emergency Food Assistance Program. These shipments, which charities request in advance, have remained in limbo since October, leaving organizations like Second Harvest unable to place new orders while the shutdown continued. With an appropriations bill to fund the government signed into law on Wednesday, the Emergency Food Assistance Program process will restart, but the lag in supplies will be felt in the months to come, Faust said.
The shutdown in Washington, D.C. came at the tail end of a long-term decline in resources for Second Harvest, with cuts at the federal and state level eating into the organization’s supplies.
“Over the course of the last ten months, we saw a huge decrease because of cuts at the federal level, and we saw decreases in the state budget from the previous state budget,” Chase-Morefield said. “We went into this crisis with less food than we have had in years.”
The loss of supplies comes at a time of high need for Second Harvest, with the organization fielding a 49 percent increase in demand during the first five days of November compared to the same time period in 2024.
Nearly 1.5 million Ohio residents rely on funds from the federal government’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to purchase food: funds that were delayed or reduced while the shutdown continued. Separately, groups that do not frequently experience food insecurity — including full-time employees of the Federal Aviation Administration, the Transportation Security Administration, and NASA — have been furloughed since early October, in some cases being required to work without pay.
“While the shutdown ended today, it’s going to have lingering effects over the next few months,” Chase-Morefield said. “We’re already at the 13th of the month, and people have used money they didn’t have to pay for food.”
In the wake of the shutdown, many college and community institutions have begun or continued collaboration with community partners that address food insecurity. This coming Monday, the Writing Associates Program will hold a bake sale to benefit preschoolers at the Empowered Early Learning Academy in Canton, Ohio who are impacted by the slowdown in SNAP benefits.
From Nov. 14–17, the Oberlin Police Department will be hosting a food drive in the department parking lot at 85 S. Main St. Donations of non-perishable foods will be delivered to Oberlin Community Services to meet community needs during the holiday season.
Director of the Oberlin Bonner Scholars Program Gabriella Valentine said the Bonner Center would continue connecting student volunteers to local non-profits, some of which deal with food insecurity, including Oberlin Community Services and Oberlin Weekday Community Meals at Christ Episcopal Church.
“The Bonner Center, and the Bonner Scholars Program in particular, grounds itself in long-term relationships with community partners and consistent service,” Valentine wrote in an email to the Review. “Students have been consistently serving in roles that support food justice since they arrived back on campus in August.”
