By Jay Worrall

President, Helping Harvest

Yes, the federal government shutdown has been resolved, and Pennsylvania’s budget has been passed. Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program recipients are once again receiving their monthly benefits. These are small victories worth celebrating.

But let me be clear: We are facing the most critical period of food insecurity since the COVID-19 pandemic.

And we cannot afford to make the same mistake we made back then.

As the worst of the pandemic lockdowns, furloughs and layoffs subsided, many of us in the charitable food system believed that with some return to normalcy, the demand for food assistance would decrease. We were wrong. What we thought was temporary became permanent. We’ve been living in a “new normal” ever since.

Our distribution n

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