Little brains need food. Research suggests that nourished kiddos do better in school. One study from 2019 even found that exposure to food-stamp benefits increased the lifetime earnings of needy kids by up to 7 percent on average. So it matters when parents are having trouble stocking their fridges and cabinets—and in the St. Louis region, according to nonprofits and pantries, this has been happening since the pandemic, and there are signs it’s getting worse.
“Every year since COVID we’ve broken a record, and this year we’re going to break it again,” says Rob Telthorst, director of St. Anthony’s Food Pantry in Dutchtown. On a recent afternoon, he pauses in the corner of a basement pantry that’s crowded with volunteers helping guests fill carts with canned goods, pasta, frozen chicken, milk, and bread.
Telthorst says that his facility served 32,000 guests in 2024, then 46,000 in 2025. That leap, he says, was in large part due to the federal government shutdown last fall. Still, he says, even this year, his pantry is on track to serve 48,000. He speculates, based on what guests have been telling him, that another factor is Missouri’s new work requirements for SNAP benefits (the new term for food stamps). That change went into effect last November. Says Telthorst: “We’ll ask them, ‘How’s it going? What’s going on?’ People will tell you: ‘Got knocked off food stamps.’”…