Disability Rights South Dakota: A Steadfast Voice for Inclusion

Over the last several months, the United States has drifted into a slow-motion food emergency. Food banks across the country have reported surging demand. Volunteers in Seattle, once baking bread as a gesture of neighborliness, now find their loaves becoming a lifeline for families who have seen their grocery budgets collapse overnight. In Laredo, Texas, community food programs have become the sole buffer against hunger as federal aid stalls. In Illinois, community colleges are launching statewide food-drive competitions just to keep their students fed. On Native American lands, long-neglected communities are building their own food hubs from scratch because no one else will. And in California, the governor is deploying the National Guard to help food banks because millions are bracing for a sudden cut in their SNAP benefits following the government shutdown.

To state the obvious, this is not in any way a string of isolated events but a pattern that is replicating with the speed and devastation of a deadly virus. This is a dire warning.

Over the last several months, the United States has drifted into a slow-motion food emergency. Food banks across the country have reported surging demand. Volunteers in Seattle, once baking bread as a gesture of neighborliness, now find their loaves becoming a lifeline for families who have seen their grocery budgets collapse overnight. In Laredo, Texas, community food programs have become the sole buffer against hunger as federal aid stalls. In Illinois, community colleges are launching statewide food-drive competitions just to keep their students fed. On Native American lands, long-neglected communities are building their own food hubs from scratch because no one else will. And in California, the governor is deploying the National Guard to help food banks because millions are bracing for a sudden cut in their SNAP benefits following the government shutdown.

To state the obvious, this is not in any way a string of isolated events but a pattern that is replicating with the speed and devastation of a deadly virus. This is a dire warning.