The center collected over 4 tons of food during an emergency food drive

On a chilly October morning, Roby Farin pulled up in her red Ford truck in front of the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Center with a truckload of winter squash from her farm in Middletown. Like clockwork, a gaggle of volunteers wearing neon bright shirts circled around the truck and started unloading the gourds onto shopping carts.

Farin was one of dozens of community members who have felt compelled to donate food to the center as SNAP benefits – known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program – hang in limbo due to the ongoing federal government shutdown. In 2021, nearly 1,800 households in Newport depended on SNAP to feed themselves, according to the most recently available report from the Department of

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