Coast military employees line up for food as government shutdown enters Week 5
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Food pantry expands weekly distributions to support furloughed Keesler families.
- Feeding the Gulf Coast dispatched truckloads to Biloxi, serving 900 families.
- Pantry managers warn SNAP pauses will spike demand and prompt urgent donation drives.
Federal employee Micah Getter sat in the family van, scrolling through a list of South Mississippi food pantries on his cell phone while two of his three sons attended a training camp.
He had gotten his last paycheck a week earlier and was wondering how he and his family would manage through the government shutdown, which is in its fifth week.
“It’s definitely taxing, especially on my wife and kids,” said Getter, a civil servant who manages all support agreements on Keesler Air Force Base and retired 10 years ago from active duty.
Getter found help for himself — and hundreds of other Keesler families — through a local food pantry. Hope for the Coast food pantry organized a food giveaway for all the Keesler personnel going without pay, Getter said.
Based at Pentecostals of the Gulf Coast church in Biloxi, the nonprofit Hope for the Coast distributed food to about 900 families, most of them connected to Keesler.
Most of the food came from the nonprofit food bank Feeding the Gulf Coast, which supplies pantries in 28 counties in South Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle.
CEO Michael Ledger said Feeding the Gulf Coast has so far supplied 65,000 meals to families affected by the government shutdown, and that number is expected to increase. Benefits will be suspended Nov. 1 under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, which serves 350,000 low-income individuals and families in Mississippi, according to the state Health Department.
Factoring in SNAP recipient needs
Food pantry managers on the Gulf Coast are worried about being overwhelmed. More people are visiting The Lord is My Help food pantry in Ocean Springs, which serves West Jackson County. Manager Barbara Ruddiman said the pantry expected to supply food for 600 people in October, up by about 200 from previous months.
Ruddiman said federal employees and people worried about losing SNAP benefits could account for some of the increase. SNAP clients, she has heard, are trying to stock up before they lose their food allowances.
“It will get incredibly busy here,” she said. “There’s no food pantry that could accommodate if everyone lost their food stamps or SNAP.”
“We have the word out right now to try and get more donations in, or try to get more food in, so we can stock up,” Ruddiman said. “We’re about to go into the holidays. That’s freaking a lot of people out, too.”
While the SNAP wave hasn’t crashed ashore yet, Feeding the Gulf Coast has 34,000 federal employees in its service area — not counting the military. Without an additional federal appropriation, active-duty members of all military branches would miss paychecks for the first time on Friday, October 31, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.
“If you need a paycheck to survive, and you don’t get it,” Ledger said, “it’s a disaster for you.”
“. . . We’re working to secure more food so we will have as much as the pantries might need.”
South MS steps up for government workers
Getter has been encouraged by the community’s support.
He didn’t know what to expect from the emails he sent out while on the trip with his sons. They set out for Corinth at 2 a.m. and arrived back home in Gulfport around midnight on Saturday, Oct. 18. Getter said he couldn’t afford a hotel room because he didn’t want to put it on his credit card.
The 51-year-old has savings to fall back on, plus an Air Force retirement and disability checks from his service, but he is doing what he can to help keep the family afloat without going into debt. His wife owns an art gallery in the mall, Gulf Coast Artists Unlimited.
“We’re good for keeping our home, keeping our lights on, keeping the water running,” he said. “It’s food and other extracurricular activities.”
In response to one of his emails, Getter heard from Mike Andrews, volunteer director of Hope for the Coast food pantry. Andrews met Getter the following Monday morning at the Pentecostal church fellowship hall.
Andrews called Feeding the Gulf Coast and handed Getter the phone. Feeding the Gulf Coast immediately offered to send over three truckloads of food, surprising Getter, who was unsure where the food would be stored once delivered.
Andrews said the food could be distributed from the church, its base of operations. His pantry is one that Feeding the Gulf Coast regularly supplies.
Getter contacted his commander at Keesler and base leadership helped get out the word about the food giveaway.
Getter volunteered every day last week at Hope for the Coast, Andrews said.
Andrews, too, is worried what will happen when SNAP benefits run out. But he said his organization will continue to work with Keesler and others to assist federal employees
“We’ll be helping them on an ongoing basis,” he said. “We will do our part as much as we can to do it again, and we’ll expand it as much as we can.”
How to help
Here’s how to help Coast food pantries feeling the strain from the government shutdown, coupled with an expected suspension of SNAP benefits for low-income families on Friday:
Feeding the Gulf Coast is a food bank that supplies pantries in 28 counties in South Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida panhandle. You can donate here. Or find other ways to get involved here.
Hope for the Coast is a Biloxi-based food pantry that is organizing food giveaways for furloughed employees of Keesler Air Force Base and the Seabee Base, along with operating its regular food pantry from 10 a.m. to noon on Thursdays. You can donate at give.tithe.ly/my-church.
The Lord is My Help, a food pantry in Ocean Springs, accepts donations via PayPal.
