Reuters: The organization’s class schedule will soon shrink as Leah’s Pantry faces a 90% funding loss from federal cuts passed in July as part of President Donald Trump’s tax-cut and spending bill.
Schools, food banks and other organizations are rushing to wind down nutrition and health programming once funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Education, known as SNAP-Ed, according to eight state officials and nonprofit organizations interviewed by Reuters.
The program was eliminated by Trump’s spending bill, effective September 30.
“It’s definitely like a catastrophic situation for public health nutrition,” said Leah’s Pantry founder and executive director Adrienne Markworth.
The cuts represent the first wave of reductions from the bill to federal nutrition programs, which also hiked work requirements for aid recipients and will eventually force significant nutrition spending onto states.
Republican lawmakers that passed the bill argued SNAP-Ed is ineffective and redundant, claims program supporters reject.
The USDA did not respond to a request for comment.
CUT PROGRAM SUPPORTED MAHA GOALS
Since 1992, the USDA has spent more than $9 billion on SNAP-Ed, agency data shows. Land-grant universities and public health departments typically funnel the federal dollars to organizations serving low-income communities with programs like cooking classes and school gardens.
SNAP-Ed sessions drew more than 1.8 million people in 2022, according to the USDA.
Lisa Kingery, CEO of the Milwaukee nonprofit organization FoodRight, which is primarily funded by SNAP-Ed, said her classes have taught more than 1,200 public school students annually to identify and cook fresh foods, which in turn has led to better family diets.
Some states will end all SNAP-Ed programs after September 30. Others will stretch funds and use leftover money from 2025 to maintain a reduced schedule for the next few months while they wind down operations, state officials and organizations said.
The House Agriculture Committee in its May proposal to cut SNAP-Ed as part of the tax-cut bill pointed to a 2019 Government Accountability Office report that found gaps in how the USDA coordinated and assessed its nutrition program.
But the USDA addressed many of those concerns in recent years, said Chris Mornick, SNAP-Ed Program Manager with the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services and a leader of the Association of SNAP Nutrition Education Administrators.
