Osceola commissioners voted 4-1 Monday to set aside $1 million to aid 38 food pantries, one week after county nonprofits said the increase in need due to a decrease in SNAP funding will spark a “crisis.”

“This made me lose sleep the whole weekend, these individuals that rely on SNAP benefits possibly going hungry,” Commissioner Viviana Janer said at the meeting. “It’s very unfortunate that we have to get to this point.”

Roughly 24,000 households in Osceola County rely on Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program benefits, Rev. Mary Downey, CEO of the nonprofit Hope Partnership, told state legislators last week.

Amid the ongoing government shutdown, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which runs the SNAP program, said last month its nearly 42 million beneficiaries would stop receive h

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