SOUTH-CENTRAL INDIANA. – Fred Glass, President and CEO of Gleaners Food Bank of Indiana, said Friday that, with the disastrous SNAP cutoff looming, Gleaners is redoubling its efforts to feed Hoosiers facing hunger as a result of the government shutdown.
Gleaners is increasing its inventory of nutritious food for people facing hunger by purchasing it from farmers, growers, producers, and other sources. This additional food inventory will be provided to our neighbors facing hunger through food pantries and food banks. It will also be utilized at Gleaners’ on-site pantry to ensure no one is turned away from one of our weekly distributions, which will be expanded during the SNAP cutoff to make them even more accessible to working families. Gleaners staff is also making sacrifices to help their neighbors in need during this extraordinary time.
The food bank is working directly with its more than 300 pantry partners in its 21-county central Indiana service area to identify ways it can help them with the expected surge in food-insecure Hoosiers seeking their help after SNAP funding ends. Similarly, Gleaners has reached out to the 10 other food banks serving Indiana to help provide food for the pantries and the food-insecure Hoosiers they serve.
Officials are also working to help the 24,000 Hoosiers who work for the federal government, as well as the 1,100 Hoosiers in the active-duty military, plus the Hoosier farmers and other small business people who work for the federal government but are not getting paid. For example, last week, nearly 150 of the 350 TSA employees at the Indianapolis International Airport placed individualized food orders from Gleaners.
Another distribution for TSA employees will go out on November 7. Gleaners continues to work with other federal agencies impacted by the shutdown, including the Indiana federal courts and the Indiana Army National Guard and its 300 federal employees.
