'I have nothing': Red state working mom frantic as food lines grow

21 November 2025

People wait in line outside Adams County Emergency Food Bank, weeks into the continuing U.S. government shutdown, in Commerce City, Colorado, U.S. October 31, 2025. REUTERS/Mark Makela

Food lines are stretching in Kansas as economic hardship settles over the state for the holidays.

Amy Turner says she and her 11-year-old daughter have been denied SNAP benefits “because I make too much.”

“It’s so irritating because now I have to go ask my mom, ‘Hey, I don’t have food for my child, can you please help?” Turner told the Kansas City Star. “I’m a single mom. I work 40 hours a week and hardly can make anything to go get food. I have nothing right now, and I’ve already been to one pantry this month.”

Inflation has hit hard and food insecurity continues to rise, reports the Star. Additionally, lines “have been long in recent weeks and organizers sometimes see double the amount of people — and many new faces.”

Food assistance “was at a 10-year high” before the federal shutdown, said Sarah Biles, a spokesman with Harvesters food bank, in Kansas City.

“We’re looking at over 374,000 people in our 27 counties that are at risk of hunger before the shutdown,” Biles told the Star.

“We have people calling every day looking for food,” said Lauren Allen, case management supervisor with Jackson County Public Health. “… I think people are wondering, ‘Could (SNAP) stop at any time? Am I going to get the rest of it?’ So we are seeing a lot of insecurities at the moment.”

Maria Barrera, a former corrections officer now suffering from paralysis, said her monthly fixed income is not handling rising inflation and bills.

“I’ve been deducted from my disability,” said Barrera, who does not get federal food assistance and struggles to pay for food. “I was deducted $570, and I have, of course, expenses and medical things that I pay out of pocket. ... I’m caught in the middle, still trying to learn the system and asking questions, but yet I come home with nothing.”

The Star reports anxiety over food is only getting worse with Thanksgiving just a week away.

“I’ve been hitting up a lot of the pantries,” said Anna Simmons, 60, of Kansas City, who qualifies for just $24 a month in SNAP benefits and relies on pantries and food distributions like the one Wednesday to make meals for herself.

Sixty-six-year-old Kansas resident Debbie Moody, meanwhile, tells the Star “There are days when we don’t have meat. We get milk maybe once a month or once a week. We get a gallon of milk, and it has to last a week.”

Kansas was one of the red states that issued full SNAP benefits after a federal Rhode Island judge ordered the Trump administration to issue full November assistance to beneficiaries. Other states, like neighboring Missouri, only began distributing partial benefits last week.

Read the Kansas City Star report at this link.

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