People with Lived Experience Shine Light on Realities of Republican-Led Cuts to SNAP for Food Insecure Families

Massachusetts may be small, but we don’t back down from a fight. Especially not when it’s for something as important as food access.

Over a million people in Massachusetts rely on SNAP benefits for their daily nutrition: children, seniors, veterans, people with disabilities, hardworking folks just trying to get by. When news broke that the Republican economic plan had passed Congress, promising inhumane cuts to programs like SNAP and Medicaid that keep people alive and fed, we had no choice but to sound the alarm and jump to action. 

As Massachusetts’ leading organization against hunger, Project Bread is at the center of a diverse network of key stakeholders in our state’s fight against hunger. Last week, we had the honor of hosting Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Rep. Jim McGovern, our two most passionate and vocal political allies in Congress, for a roundtable listening session at our East Boston office. We were joined by community partners across the food sector, people experiencing or witnessing the daily realities of food insecurity.

We didn’t gather just to talk. We came to listen. To name the harm. To listen and learn from the expertise of people who have personally experienced food insecurity and center their insights as we plan a path forward. Because in Massachusetts, no child should go to school hungry. No senior should skip meals to afford medicine. No working family should depend on a food pantry to survive. No one should go hungry. Period.

Despite the heaviness of the moment, we were inspired by the listening session to recommit to our critical work. The crisis of food insecurity is the result of targeted, systemic policy decisions aimed to attack our most vulnerable communities. But just as hunger is a manmade crisis, so too will be the change that eradicates it. 

And you, Project Bread supporters, make it possible for our organization to be a resource for Massachusetts. Your partnership in the fight against hunger is what elevates voices, informs policy, and fights for systems that prevent hunger, not just respond to it.

Standing in Project Bread’s office in East Boston, it was hard to hear much over the excited chatter of congressional staff, community and media partners, and folks with lived experience. This has been a difficult period, but on Friday, we strongly felt Rep. McGovern's words, "it's good to be with good people."

Once everyone had filled their coffee cups and taken their seats, Project Bread President & CEO Erin McAleer got the conversation started by reminding us what we all came for, “We look forward to a Massachusetts where no one has to depend on charity to feed their family.” 

Addressing the roundtable, she opened the discussion by asking: How are you getting by? What’s critical to you? How will these cuts affect your family?

Here are a few of their answers.

Evelyn is 72, a grandmother of three and great grandmother of one. She shared how she receives the minimum SNAP benefit of $23 and how her experience with food insecurity changes every time she goes into her kitchen. 

• “It’s not right, it’s not fair, but it’s life. And I’m dealing with it as best I can.” 

Evelyn has always used her SNAP benefits to purchase fruits and vegetables, milk and eggs. Basic needs for a healthy life that you typically can’t find at a food pantry. According to the USDA, grocery prices have increased by 23.6% nationally from 2020 to 2024. With this rise in food cost, Evelyn shared that her entire monthly allotment of SNAP benefits usually runs out after just 3 or 4 items. 

In her retirement, Evelyn regularly babysits her great granddaughter. Even when her mom packs her lunch, the little one often still needs a snack. 

Like so many grandmothers across Massachusetts, Evelyn is doing everything she can to stretch what little she has.

• “It’s sad that I have to think in this manner that, after working for 60 years of my life, and at the most important time of my life, that I need help and that it has to be from a pantry. There’s no shame in that, but it’s sad that that’s the first thought I have.” 

Jack, a passionate volunteer from the East Boston Community Soup Kitchen, spoke next. He shared that despite their efforts to provide free meals with dignity with the few resources they have, “the desperation in our community is growing.”

EBCSK, powered by volunteers largely made up of former clients, is striving to model food justice by consistently evolving to meet their community’s needs as whole human beings, without means-testing their worth. Fresh produce, non-perishable staples, hygiene products, even pet food, because “mental health matters and love is not a luxury.” And they want to do even more! But without funding, whether from the government or from private supporters, nothing they do ever feels like enough. The free food they’re able to provide is not enough to fill the gaping holes in care that federal spending cuts have created.

• “Every week, we show up. Not because it’s easy, but because it matters.” 

Including three members of The 2025 Council of Experts With Lived Experience, pictured below with Rep. Ayanna Pressley and Erin McAleer Catalina López-Ospina from Project Bread:

• Alexandra Mello, Parent from Northampton
• Janinn Otero, Constituent and Parent from Roxbury
• Carlos Morales, Food Access Manager of La Colaborativa

Rep. Pressley said it best: “There’s been a lot of shame around hunger. But this isn’t a shame for you to carry, it’s a shame our nation should carry.” And Rep. McGovern reminded us that more policy makers need to hear these stories because, “We have the money. We have the food. We have the infrastructure. What we’re missing is the political will.”

This was the kind of conversation that gives real meaning to the statistics we hear so often. Both representatives committed to taking these stories of struggle, resilience, and injustice back to their colleagues, to the media, and to the floor of the House of Representatives. 

Their goal: to elevate the truth, name the harm, and back the bill’s supporters into a corner until they have no choice but to undo the damage they’ve caused.

Thank you for making this moment possible by supporting Project Bread!