By Jeff Lemberg

Martina is a mother of two who comes to the Newton Food Pantry twice a month to help stretch her grocery budget. Even with SNAP benefits (formerly known as the food stamp program), she struggles to afford enough fresh fruit and vegetables, eggs, milk and other staples necessary for her family to maintain a healthy diet.

As the executive director of the Newton Food Pantry, I believe it is a moral imperative to ensure that everyone in our community has enough nutritious food to eat. However, with recent cuts to SNAP, that imperative has become far more difficult to fulfill.

Hunger relief has long been a paradox of poverty amidst plenty both locally and nationally. Newton is a large and relatively affluent city with a median household income of $185,000. And yet, more than 4,000 of our fellow residents live at or below the federal poverty level. That’s a mere $31,200 for a family of four; $15,050 for an individual.

Due to the high cost of rental housing in Newton, economically vulnerable individuals here—compared to those living in many other cities—have even less to spend on healthy foods and other essentials.

In the early 1930s, amid the Great Depression, the journalist Walter Lippman spoke of this divide in the U.S. and articulated a need for the government to make surplus agriculture available to the millions of Americans who were starving. Some 30 years later, the modern SNAP program was born, and countless people have been fed and kept out of extreme poverty.

SNAP allows recipients the dignity of choice, letting them select the foods that fit their needs, traditions and health requirements. This principle is also a hallmark of the Newton Food Pantry’s operations. The Newton Food Pantry employs a choice shopping model so that our clients can select for themselves the foods they and their families need and want. Our pantry is stocked each week with upward of 50 unique items—many of which we purchase through produce vendors, wholesalers and international food markets—so that shoppers can access, free of charge, fresh and nutritious foods.

Even before the recent cuts, food pantries were an essential part of the hunger-relief ecosystem. According to the Greater Boston Food Bank’s recent “Cost of Hunger in Massachusetts” report, a whopping 75% of SNAP participants reported needing additional food support to meet their household’s monthly needs—up from 61% of recipients in 2020. Here in Newton, nearly 4,350 residents receive SNAP benefits.

But when SNAP benefits are reduced, or outright eliminated, charitable food programs like the Newton Food Pantry must find ways to make up the difference. It is a struggle.

To be sure, SNAP has never been perfect. Recipients have long been prohibited from using benefits to purchase prepared hot meals from participating stores—policy makers apparently determined that economically vulnerable people don’t deserve the same conveniences as everyone else—and participants can’t use SNAP benefits to buy personal care products. (It’s for this reason the Newton Food Pantry provides its clients with toilet paper, shampoo, toothpaste and menstrual products, among other essential items.)

Despite its shortcomings, though, SNAP remains one of this country’s greatest weapons against food insecurity and nutrition-related illness. Feeding those in need is never a waste.

At a time when economic inequality is likely to grow, hunger-relief organizations need their community’s support more than ever. The Newton Food Pantry is the oldest and largest hunger-relief organization in Newton, serving more than 2,500 Newton residents, yet we know increasingly more Newtonians will now be seeking our help. We are working to meet this critical moment, but we cannot do it alone.

Food is not optional. Dignity should not be negotiable. As a community, we owe it to one another to ensure that no one in Newton goes without the food they need to live the healthy lives we all deserve.

Jeff Lemberg is the executive director of the Newton Food Pantry. Learn more about their work at www.newtonfoodpantry.org.