May 13’s ‘Stamp Out Hunger’ brings together community

It’s doubtful that Letter Carrier leader Scott Haney and Postmaster General Louis DeJoy could agree on lunch.

But lunch – and breakfast, dinner and more – for countless people will improve after the “Stamp Out Hunger” food drive on Saturday, May 13.

Haney and U.S. Postal Service unions work together, including the American Postal Workers Union, the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, and the National Association of Letter Carriers, where Haney is President of Branch 31. They’ll put aside their differences to partner with the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, the AFL-CIO, United Way Worldwide, and companies such as Kellogg and CVS Health, all to replenish food banks and pantries.

All the food collected stays in the local area.

Local volunteers will have different interests, ages, backgrounds, races, genders and locations, once more coming together for a shared purpose: helping others. They help those in chronic need, or folks who’ve hit a rough patch, or families hurt when summer means no school – nor school breakfasts or lunches.

“There’s no ‘red’ or ‘blue’,” says Haney, briefly interrupted on lunch break during his route west of Sterling Avenue.

As coordinator of the area effort, Haney adds, “It’s regular people helping regular people: working people – or even some without jobs. In fact, the needy really do better giving. They give more freely, it seems.”

One of more than a dozen, mostly senior, volunteers at the Bartonville Christian Church – where a food pantry serves Hollis, Limestone, Logan and Timber Townships and seven area communities, Connie Malson says they help without passing judgment.

“They are people dealing with some kind of hardship,” she says. “It could be your next-door neighbor. You don’t know people’s circumstances.”

Before May 13, Letter Carriers will leave plastic bags for postal customers to use to donate nonperishable food for pickup by carriers. By the end of that day, Peoria’s North University Post Office will have seen some 60 trucks bring in tens of thousands of pounds of food, Haney says.

Launched in 1991, “Stamp Out Hunger” grew to a nationwide drive within a few years, This year’s drive is particularly timely, coming weeks after huge cuts in the pandemic emergency aid for people in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP – “food stamps”).

One of the country’s key social-safety programs, SNAP’s overall daily assistance for low-income households dropped from about $9 to $6.10. Meanwhile, of course, food prices skrocketed since the emergency relief took effect.

In Illinois, SNAP’s reduction affects 1,058,837 households, according to the Food Research & Action Center, which adds that older adults at the minimum benefit level will be hurt the most, as their benefits droped from $281/month to $23.

Asked if agencies like the Peoria Area Food Bank have concerns about the SNAP reductions, its director, Wayne Cannon, says yes – and no.

“Concerned? More? Hard to say,” he comments. “We still have difficulty believing the need out there.”

A mile south of downtown,  the PAFB’s offices and warehouse is a single-story cinder-block building on McBean, where Cannon has led the agency providing food to 83 pantries and four soup kitchens in Peoria, Tazewell and Mason Counties. Last year, the food bank collected 2.4 million pounds of food, Cannon says.

“Our mission is to reduce the need, to help people be self-sufficient,” he says, adding that his operation looks beyond the short-term, like fire departments educating people about smoke alarms and prevention, not just battling blazes.

“Long-term, we want to be part of dealing with root causes of people with food insecurity,” Cannon says.

Still, “Stamp Out Hunger is a major food drive,” he continues. “We collect anywhere from 30,000 to 60,000 pounds just that day.”

That day is a long one for Cannon, who brings Cubs Scouts from Pack 219 to the Post Office Persimmon Annex off State Street.

“The kids run out, help unload bags and bags of food, and start to separate glass from cans and so on,” he says.

“It’s pretty organized.”

The day is demanding for all the volunteers, but it’s worthwhile. At the end of the day, Haney says, he’s “sore. Happy-tired.”

 

 

House GOP trying to further

restrict food assistance

Dozens of House Republicans last month proposed legislation that would impose stricter work requirements on some recipients of federal food aid, a signal that the GOP may aim for limiting nutrition assistance in talks about the debt ceiling, the budget, and the Farm Bill.

Introduced by Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.), H.R. 1581 would “expand the age bracket for able-bodied [SNAP] recipients without dependents, who have to meet complicated work requirements,” according to Politico.

The measure, which has 38 co-sponsors, would increase the food-stamp work-requirement age bracket 16 years for adults without dependents, from 49 years old to 65.

The co-sponsors – all Republican – include Rep. Mary Miller of Illinois’ 15^th Congressional District, which includes Adams, Brown, Fulton, Hancock, Mason, Schuyler and part of McDonough Counties in the area served by the West Central Illinois Building and Construction Trades Council.

Current SNAP rules say that people categorized as able-bodied adults without dependents can only receive federal food benefits for just three months during any three-year period when they’re jobless.

“This is a time limit that takes SNAP away when people aren’t working – withholding food as a punishment for not having a stable job,” according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which reports that most working-age snap participants work, but often in unstable jobs.

The bill – titled the America Works Act of 2023 – claims to be to increase employment. However, research has repeatedly demonstrated that such work requirements don’t achieve that. Instead, mandates exclude people from the program.

“Including work requirements in social safety net programs is predicated on the belief that if people are receiving assistance, they won’t want to work,” according to Elaine Waxman and Heather Hahn of the Urban Institute. “They don’t actually promote increased work and earnings.

“A 2021 study on the effects of reinstating work requirements and work-related time limits for certain SNAP participants in nine states found no evidence the rules increased employment or annual earnings,” their report says. “What they did do was impose complex administrative procedures on both participants and state administrators and dramatically decrease SNAP participation … for people who are [otherwise] eligible.”

H.R. 1581 on March 14 was referred to the House Committee on Agriculture.