Chris Ford, President & CEO Published in Quad-City Times Nov. 7, 2025
Feeding people today has grown a lot more complicated.
River Bend Food Bank moves 500,000 pounds every week to 400+ hunger-relief partners. We are the operational hub and information center for hundreds of partners in our community who unite to serve 17 million meals annually.
Amid the government shutdown and historic SNAP freeze, part of our resources and our limited manpower have been dedicated to staying attuned to the ever-evolving news from the federal and state levels so that we can make the best choices we can for critical hunger-relief in challenging times.
The uptick in demand and surge in our pantry lines is already happening. One day last week we saw more than 430 households at our NorthPark Mall pantry — an additional 100 guests above our typical demand. Last week alone NorthPark Mall signed up 82 households who had never before visited our pantries.
Governors Kim Reynolds and J.B. Pritzker have announced emergency funding. Both states’ emergency efforts are not adequate in filling the gap for the 2 million Illinois residents and the 270,000 Iowa residents who utilize SNAP.
Now we’ve learned that SNAP benefits will restart, but at half the normal payment and on a delayed schedule. This news development is another layer of uncertainty added to the shoulders of SNAP recipients.
The government shutdown creates hardship for millions. The halt or reduction of crucial SNAP benefits puts 65,000 people in River Bend Food Bank’s 23-county service area in a terrible spot — forced to make tough choices on paying light or heat bills, groceries and other necessities.
River Bend Food Bank’s staff and 400+ hunger-relief partners are working to deliver as much food and as many answers as we can in these unprecedented times.
Steps River Bend Food Bank is taking now:
- Identifying strategies and funding sources to secure additional emergency food inventory, including communicating with retailers that we’re equipped to accept accelerated donations
- Exploring alternative pantry models to facilitate serving unprecedented crowds at our primary sites
- Creating a community engagement toolkit to help mobilize individuals and groups who have raised their voices and their hands to help
- Sharing FAQs and resource pages to our staff and partners to prepare them for increased calls for help
All of these initiatives are aimed at delivering as many resources and as many answers as we can cobble together to respond to the unprecedented call of this moment: provide food as SNAP, the nation’s best tool for fighting food insecurity, is disrupted.
As SNAP Outreach Manager Lisa Spitler shared at River Bend Food Bank’s recent SNAP Spotlight, families are frustrated, confused and uncertain of what’s ahead as they experience a drastic loss of benefits.
“This tends to be a hard time of year at most pantries, getting increasing numbers,” she said. “Now it’s going to be going even higher because without the SNAP dollars, the pantries are pretty much the next step, or the only other step for folks to go to.”
Your advocacy matters now. Your donations to River Bend Food Bank matter now. Signing up to fulfill volunteer shifts at NorthPark, SouthPark, or other local pantry sites matters now.
The challenges of today are just a microcosm of the shocks and challenges our local communities and our nation will experience when the drastic SNAP reductions from HR-1 take effect in October 2026.
River Bend Food Bank will keep our mission of feeding our neighbors our top priority. We are working on creative and strategic changes that can make a difference now for hunger-relief. Please stand with us and your community by donating to stock the shelves of local pantries for hunger-relief.
Chris Ford
River Bend Food Bank President & CEO