Allison Dungan, the manager at Goodman Community Center’s Fritz Food Pantry, has only been in her role for a few months — but she’s no stranger to the work.
A decade ago, she worked at the Goodman Community Center, when the pantry on the east side of Madison served in a week the same number of people it now serves in a single day. The pantry is now four times larger than it was then, a reflection of the city’s growing need for food assistance. However, meeting that need has become harder as government support shifts and resources are constrained.
Across Madison, food pantries Fritz and Extended Hands Pantry on the city’s far west side, are facing higher demand at the same time that changes at the federal level are bringing additional uncertainty.
Federal funding cuts, the halt of government-provided food assistance and the discontinuation of federal hunger reports are causing a strain on local food pantries. Now, they must rely on reducing their offerings and securing additional community support for feeding those in need.
“For us it’s more than just taking away the hunger reports,” said Jenny Czerkas, the operations director at Extended Hands Pantry. “It’s all the federal funding that has been taken away from hunger—period—really, really hurts us.”
On Sept. 20, the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced that it would end publication of the Household Food Security Reports, describing them as “costly,” “redundant” and "politicized."
The 2024 report showed that about 13.5% of U.S. households experienced food insecurity, meaning they struggled at times to provide enough food because of limited resources. This is significantly higher than the 12.8% of households recorded in 2022, and the roughly 10% recorded in both 2021 and 2020.
The Trump administration’s decision to end these reports is sending a clear message to food pantry directors.
“It seems to us that it’s an effort to try to make hunger and poverty invisible,” Czerkas said.
At Extended Hands, the rising need for food is evident firsthand, but a hunger report can be an essential resource that helps provide financial support for the pantry.
“We know the need [for food] is increasing because we can’t keep the shelves stocked,” Czerkas said. “We don’t necessarily need a report to tell us that hunger is increasing, but we need those facts and data to back up our funding requests.”
Dungan said Fritz Food Pantry relies on what it observes daily rather than a hunger report, while noting that the reports are likely useful when applying for grants or reaching out to donors.
Although many pantry staff rely on daily observations rather than national data to calculate needs, hunger reports can be a useful tool in building awareness.
Given the small scale of Extended Hands, “our reach is very small,” Czerkas said. However, she added, “When the USDA puts out a hunger report, the reach is nationwide and the reach is wide. So they are going to do a much better job of building awareness than we could ever hope for.”
Dungan mentioned how these reports can serve as an educational opportunity.
“It’s important to do the hunger report and it’s important to tell people who otherwise may have hunger invisibilized in their life because we have such an income disparity in terms of people who have enough food and folks who don’t,” Dungan said.
But while national reports can raise awareness and generate financial support, some pantry workers say funding cuts and the recent federal government shutdown had an even greater impact on their operations.
According to an Oct. 31 press release from Gov. Tony Evers’ office, the governor signed an executive order declaring a state of emergency in response to the federal government shutdown and loss of FoodShare benefits. The order directs state government departments to help Wisconsinites who have lost access to food assistance and authorized the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to enforce laws against price overcharging.
The release also mentioned that Evers’ executive order was developed due to uncertainty over whether the Trump administration would comply with court rulings requiring it to continue funding for benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The program, nationally known as SNAP, is called FoodShare in Wisconsin, and it serves nearly 700,000 state residents.
During the first week of the government shutdown, the Fritz Food Pantry experienced its largest influx of new households in the last six months, Dungan said.
She added that more users were coming to the food pantry once it was known that SNAP benefits would be paused in November.
According to Czerkas, Extended Hands experienced a 40% increase in the number of people using the pantry after the government shutdown ended SNAP benefits.
“The SNAP cuts will be very difficult for food pantries. We are already operating beyond our capacity, and now it’s only going to get worse,” Czerkas said.
Faced with fewer resources, local pantries are finding ways to adapt.
Due to higher food costs, Extended Hands must scale back on the food options it provides, Czerkas said.
As for Fritz Food Pantry, Dungan said the Goodman Community Center will expand the pantry’s budget this year to account for rising food costs. However, that change also means the organization must increase fundraising to keep up.
The pantry also plans to seek more private donations to address local inequities. While it is encouraging more mutual aid efforts — community members helping to feed one another — it has also led to the rationing of supplies to make limited resources last longer.
But even as pantries adjust, Andy Czerkas, Jenny’s husband and executive director of Extended Hands Pantry, says that more support is needed beyond the local level.
“Policy changes are necessary — they’re a disaster right now,” Andy Czerkas said. “They’re a disaster for every food pantry — for every organization that deals with less fortunate people in our society.”
