NEW LONDON, Conn — A high school student from Old Lyme is going above and beyond to help families struggling with food insecurity amid the ongoing government shutdown.

What started as a small act of kindness quickly turned into a community-wide effort to make sure no one goes hungry.

Jake Prokopets, 17, has owned Jake’s Dogs for about a year, and now, he has made it his mission to give away 1,000 hot dogs to children and families who have lost access to their SNAP benefits.

“I had to go through a couple of stores and kind of sell them out of hot dogs,” Prokopets said with a laugh. “I’m sure they were looking at the labels like, ‘Why are so many hot dogs being sold today?’ I brought them out here, cooked 20 at a time, stored them, and whenever I got a customer, I had it prepped and ready

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