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A federal government shutdown has halted funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, starting Nov. 1.

Nearly 700,000 Wisconsin residents, including one in four children under 5, will be affected by the loss of FoodShare benefits.

Central Wisconsin food pantries are already reporting a significant increase in people seeking assistance due to the shutdown.

As the Nov. 1 deadline nears for a halt of federally funded nutrition assistance programs many are concerned about the impact the pause in benefits will have on local families in need and local food pantries are saying it comes at a time they already are seeing record numbers.

“We’ve had double our people (coming in for help),” Roseann Willett DeBot, executive director of Operation Bootst

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