Food banks feel strain as government shutdown hits day 31

SOUTHEAST MISSOURI(KBSI) – As the federal government shutdown stretches on, food pantries report they are seeing a major influx in families needing their support after SNAP benefits have been paused. 

 Food pantries across Southeast Missouri say they’re facing one of the toughest seasons they’ve seen in years, balancing that increased need for assistance. 

Jim Keusenkothen is the Director of Catholic Social Ministries Food Pantry in Cape Girardeau. Joey Keys, is the President and CEO of Semo foodbank. 

“October was the highest amount of folks that we’ve served in our history which was 1009 families that we served in the month of October” Keusenkothen. 

“Definitely seen neighbors concerned about SNAP assistance for November” says Keys. “We’ve seen an increase in phone calls, traffic not only at our mobile distributions, also our neighbors, our neighborhood pantries that we have throughout our service area.” 

 Both Keys and Keusenkothen report that families who once got by without help from pantries because of their SNAP benefits are now coming to the foodbank for help.

 “When the word came out, early last week we noticed a difference then and just the clients were also mentioning that that they had heard about it, and they were worried folks that had not used the pantry in quite some time and they thought, well, we better do it because of that”

says Keusenkothen.

 The federal government shutdown is now on day 31, and state officials have begun to tell needy families to go to their local pantries for help and try stretching their previous months SNAP benefits as long as possible.

Many state legislatures have begun to move funding to try to assist with the growing need. That includes Missouri’s Governor Mike Kehoe, who signed on October 29, 2025 for 5 million dollars to be released early from existing TANF funds to be dispersed to Missouri’s food pantry’s.

 “So, there’s been a longstanding private public partnership with the Missouri Food banks and the state government, with Tanf funding and we’re very thankful the governor has released these funds early to us to make sure we can sustain our response to the best we can during this, government shutdown and snap challenge”   says Keys.