When SNAP Fails, Community Steps Up
Double Up Food Bucks allows SNAP participants to buy more fresh fruits and vegetables by matching every dollar they spend on produce. Help us to replace this loss in benefits for our neighbors!
When SNAP Stops: What the November Gap Means for Austin
Beginning November 1, 2025, an interruption in federal SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) funding will cancel benefits for thousands of Austin families. For many, this means an immediate loss of their primary source for groceries, and a ripple effect across our entire food system.
How Many Austinites Rely on SNAP
Roughly 87,000 people in Travis County depend on SNAP to buy food each month, and they include families, older adults, veterans, and people with disabilities.
Nationally, 39% of SNAP participants are children, 20% are seniors, and 10% are non-elderly adults with disabilities. Four in five households include at least one child, senior, or person with a disability.
These are not abstract numbers. They represent the individuals our volunteers meet every day.
What Happens When Benefits End
When SNAP stops, households face impossible choices: groceries or rent, food or medicine.
Local food banks and pantries are already seeing new visitors each week, but emergency food systems cannot match SNAP’s scale. For every meal provided by food banks and pantries, SNAP provides nine. That means even a modest lapse in benefits will far outstrip what charitable food systems can supply.
In neighborhoods already lacking grocery stores or reliable transportation, like parts of East Austin and the outskirts of Travis County, the impact will be especially severe.
Ripple Effects on Austin’s Economy
SNAP dollars don’t just feed families; they sustain local farmers, businesses and jobs. According to the USDA, every $1 in SNAP benefits generates $1.50–$1.80 in local economic activity and that revenue flows to grocery stores, farmers markets, and food retail workers.
When that spending disappears, grocers and neighborhood markets lose sales, and employees may see reduced hours. The effects reach every link in our food system, from suppliers to store clerks.
How Keep Austin Fed Is Responding
Keep Austin Fed doesn’t purchase food; we rescue it. With 3 walk-in coolers, 2 transport vans, 5 full time staff, and hundreds of volunteers, we’re expanding operations to:
• Rescue more surplus food from local grocers, restaurants, farms, and markets
• Deliver it directly to partners and community fridges in high-need areas
• Host emergency mobile grocery giveaways to reach neighbors where they live
• Coordinate with our Austin area partners to ensure we are doing our utmost to meet increasing demands
But even at full capacity, we cannot fill the SNAP gap alone. SNAP remains the single most effective program for preventing hunger and stabilizing families.
How You Can Help
Food Donors: Are you a food business and have surplus? We’ll pick it up.
→ keepaustinfed.org/donate-food or text 512-831-3654
Volunteer: Join us for flexible shifts and help deliver food to neighbors.
Monetary Support: Help us keep vans running and coolers powered during this surge.
Virtual Food Drive: Purchase perishable food in our GiveHealthy food drive → https://amplify.ampyourgood.com/user/campaigns/5150
Advocate: Make your voice heard and email your member of Congress through Food Research & Action Center
The Bottom Line
Hunger in our communities is a policy choice, and the lapse in SNAP benefits is more than a budget issue. This is a crisis that will affect tens of thousands of our neighbors and reverberate throughout Austin’s food economy. Keep Austin Fed and our partners will do everything we can, but only SNAP provides the scale, consistency, and dignity people deserve.