The Kent County Food Policy Council and the Essential Needs Task Force gathered community leaders at a roundtable with Congresswoman Hillary Scholten to sound the alarm about the worsening food security crisis in Kent County.
HR 1 (or the Big, Beautiful Bill), passed in the summer of 2025, imposed massive cuts to the program that will reduce SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) funding by approximately $186 billion over 10 years—a 20% cut that marks the largest reduction in the history of the program.
SNAP provides food-insecure families with access to healthy, low-cost meals, improving health outcomes. Families use SNAP to shop at local grocery stores or farmer’s markets, boosting revenue for those entrepreneurs and pumping money through local businesses. Currently, 67,000 people in Kent County receive SNAP benefits…