GRACE AIGNER: Hi everyone! I’m Grace Aigner from the Minnesota Daily. Welcome back to another episode of In The Know, a podcast dedicated to the University of Minnesota.
During the last week of October, the federal government announced that November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, would not be sent to the 42 million Americans enrolled in the program. The Trump administration said SNAP money cannot be sent out because of the government shutdown.
SNAP is funded by the federal government, but administered by individual states. Each month, SNAP participants receive a monthly allowance to use to pay for groceries. Most of the millions of Americans who receive SNAP benefits are children and senior citizens.
On Wednesday, Congress passed a bill to end the 43-day government shutdown—the longest in U.S. history. The bill will fund SNAP through September of 2026. But the temporary SNAP freeze left many Americans struggling to find food, and food pantries straining to support their needs.
When SNAP funding was still up in the air, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz announced on Nov. 8 the state would use $4 million in emergency funds to send November’s SNAP money in full to Minnesotans who need it. But this money is a band-aid, not a permanent solution. Emergency funds from individual states wouldn’t sustain SNAP needs for long.
Before Walz allocated the emergency funds, 440,000 Minnesotans were going without money they rely on to feed themselves and their family this month.
One in five Minnesotans—or about one million people—deal with some level of food insecurity, according to a study by midwest food bank Second Harvest Heartland and the Wilder Foundation. Black and Native American families reported higher rates of food insecurity.
On today’s episode, we’re talking to students, food pantry organizers and university faculty about food insecurity for college students and the effects of the SNAP freeze. Sophie Wallerstedt, a spokesperson for Second Harvest Heartland, said food insecurity is an evergreen issue in the U.S..
SOPHIE WALLERSTEDT: We were already in a hunger crisis. We have seen additional demand at food shelves. Partners of ours are reporting, you know, 30-40% increase in visits. That’s linked to higher inflation, higher cost of food.
The economy hasn’t been awesome in terms of opportunities for employment or better employment. So you’re already seeing a lot of folks needing to rely on the hunger relief system that wouldn’t have otherwise.
AIGNER: The SNAP freeze quickly sent Americans rushing to their local food shelves to supplement their needs. Second Harvest Heartland saw about a 30% decrease in food donations this year, and Wallerstedt said the demand put a strain on food shelves that were already struggling with stocking enough food.
WALLERSTEDT: It’s money into people’s pockets to be able to go to a local grocery store and buy the food that they want and support their local grocer, their local economy. And when you take that away, that leaves a lot of folks no choice but to need to go to a food shelf.
And while we do our best to make sure that there’s a lot of different food stocked, that the quality is good, when you have demand increase at the level it’s just not sustainable. And people are not getting the same dignified experience that they’re getting when they’re able to purchase food with SNAP dollars.
We know that SNAP is the most effective hunger program in the country. So when you really think about the magnitude of how SNAP is supporting folks, if you take that away entirely, like even reducing it by 10% would require us to essentially double our efforts, so taking it away entirely, there’s just no way that we can meet that need.
AIGNER: SNAP sends about $72 million monthly to Minnesotans. To put the scale of SNAP’s impact into perspective, for every meal that a Feeding America food bank provides to Americans, SNAP can provide nine.
To receive SNAP benefits in Minnesota, a person or household must meet a specific monthly income requirement. For example, a four-person household’s monthly income must be less than $5,359. A University of Minnesota college student’s monthly income must be less than $2,609 to receive SNAP benefits.
Jamie Dolynchuk, the president of Minneapolis food pantry Community Emergency Service, said the number of people the pantry serves has grown in recent months. Most pantry visitors are single moms, working couples living paycheck to paycheck and college students.
JAMIE DOLYNCHUK: I often will bring groups here from organizations, from companies, from churches, I mean, any place. And I always ask them before they get here, tell me who you think you’re gonna see. Who are you gonna be serving?
And it is never who they actually are. And so it’s remarkable to see the change in mentality when people actually come here and spend time in the food shelf. And what I ask people is, I just want you to meet one or two people, learn their name, learn their background and learn their story.
It’s not filled with people that are trying to take advantage of a system, that are lazy, it is none of that. It’s people that are working hard, trying to make ends meet, have fallen on tough times, often have lost a job because of a disability and or a mental illness. Whatever the case is, we don’t care. We’re there to serve them.
AIGNER: Community Emergency Service provides more than double the pounds of food most pantries can give, Dolynchuk said. He attributes the increase in food pantry visitors to the rising costs of food, rent and education, on top of cuts to federal assistance.
A federal judge ruled on Nov. 6 that the Trump administration must use reserved SNAP funds to fund the program and supply Americans with money for food they need. The administration appealed the ruling, blaming the frozen SNAP money on the federal government shutdown.
Michelle Trumpy, the director of public health at the University of Minnesota’s Boynton Health clinic, said food insecurity impacts college students at the university the same way it impacts people nationwide—and can make it harder for students to succeed and stay in school.
MICHELLE TRUMPY: Food insecurity happens on a continuum. So on one end, a student might be worried about running out of food. So if you’re worried about running out of food, you’re thinking about that, that’s on your mind.
And then you’re moving along the continuum. The students who are on the most severe side, they’re actually skipping meals, and maybe even more than a meal a day. We know that that has physiological effects on someone. Your brain is not working at its full potential when you’re not properly nourished, and so that has implications too. You may be more forgetful.
It may be challenging to keep your attention or keep your focus. That will make it really hard to pay attention in class. That makes it really challenging to be a student and to stay in school and to actualize your goals of getting a degree from the university.
AIGNER: One in four students at the U of M deals with food insecurity, according to Boynton’s 2024 College Student Health Survey.
Noah Leuchtenberger, a third-year student majoring in developmental psychology, applied for SNAP for the second time in September. After a nearly two month-long process of filling out the online application, mailing documents, waiting for a phone call and doing an interview, he was rejected.
NOAH LEUCHTENBERGER: After that interview, which was like probably two and a half weeks ago, so like right on that cusp of when people really started talking about SNAP, the person who interviewed me this very nice lady, I don’t know, she gave me the vote of confidence.
Because I did ask her, “Do you know when I’ll be hearing back and based on my application, what do you think?” And she was like, “Oh, I think your application is pretty strong, and you’ll be hearing back about like probably a week or two.” So I definitely got my hopes up, which is even a little bit worse.
AIGNER: Leuchtenberger has a paid job as a peer coach for the university’s Center for Academic Planning and Exploration, and does unpaid work at a university lab. He said because he works more hours than he gets paid for, he applied for SNAP to relieve stress about budgeting for groceries.
LEUCHTENBERGER: In terms of like what it would’ve changed for me, it would’ve just like allowed me to eat more food and like, not have to think about it kind of 24/7. Just like budgeting for how much I spend in the grocery store and like trying to find rides to like Aldi instead of going to the Target on campus and stuff. It just would’ve kind of alleviated some stress that I just go through every week.
AIGNER: Dolynchuk realized how frequently college students visit the food pantry this year. He said its proximity to the UMN campus and the privacy of an off-campus location likely appeals to students trying to feed themselves.
DOLYNCHUK: As we have grown, and unfortunately I don’t like to grow, but as we have more and more people that are coming to particularly our food shelf, we started to notice in this past year there were students, kids coming into the food shelf.
At first I had actually made a mistake because a lot of the professional college courses at the university now require a certain amount of volunteer hours in order to apply. So you have to have a certain amount of hours to apply to the dental college, for example, or medical.
And I actually thought these students were coming into volunteer, and so I approached them and I said, “Hey, you know, I’ll go get Nicole, our volunteer coordinator.’” And they said, “Oh, no, no. We’re here for an appointment.” And I said, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You’re here for food.”
AIGNER: In July, just a few months before the government shutdown and the SNAP freeze, Minnesota lawmakers made an important change to SNAP eligibility requirements for college students.
The Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Families added a new requirement that says working college students can be eligible for SNAP if they verbally state to a SNAP counselor that they can not work 20 hours a week and stay in good standing with their university.
Before July, SNAP eligibility required college students to prove they work at least 20 hours a week, have a physical or mental disability or are taking care of a young child. Wallerstedt said many students could not access SNAP because of these specific requirements.
WALLERSTEDT: Putting the shutdown aside for a minute, I think this is really an opportunity for students to, if they haven’t already, to examine their potential to be eligible for SNAP. I think a lot of college students do not realize that they’re eligible for these benefits because of their income level, and so one thing I would recommend is look into that and to, you know, see if you are eligible.
Overall I would hope that this is an opportunity for more students and hopefully like student groups also to recognize the importance and the opportunity that SNAP creates for people. We know that college students have a pretty high level of food insecurity and I know there are food shelves available or food pantries available to college students, but nothing beats actually having the money to buy the food that you want.
AIGNER: In addition to these eligibility barriers, Trumpy said social stigma around getting food assistance also contributes to the gap in how many college students are eligible for SNAP versus the number who actually access it.
TRUMPY: I do think that there’s probably some old stereotypes where it’s like, “Oh, college students are poor. Oh, living on ramen.” It’s like, no, we’re talking about students living in poverty and really struggling about getting enough to eat and this is an issue and it’s impacting them. And we need to be doing something about it if we want to be retaining these students and having them graduate and be contributing in our communities.
AIGNER: Because of this stigma, tracking food insecurity in college students was a relatively recent change to understanding student health, Trumpy said.
TRUMPY: We know about who’s coming to visit the food pantry, but what about the students who are struggling and not coming into the food pantry? What can we do to be supporting them and what is it about the current programming that we might need to adjust? Is it an awareness issue? Is it the times and or locations aren’t convenient? Is there something else?
Not knowing that this is a resource that’s available to them, sometimes I hear that from students, “Well, I don’t know if my situation is bad enough.” If you’re thinking about it. You can come in.
If a student comes in and uses the pantry, they’re not taking away from another student. That’s another thing that sometimes I hear about, like, “Well, maybe somebody else is in a worse situation needs it. So we should preserve those resources for them.” That’s not true either.
AIGNER: Boynton Health started measuring student food insecurity in 2015. Since then, the university has worked to alleviate student hunger through the campus food pantry Nutritious U. Usually open twice a month in the Coffman Union, the pantry has expanded hours to the West Bank and St. Paul campuses to meet student needs.
Because of the SNAP freeze, Nutritious U added an extra hour onto every day the pantry is open. Trumpy said this could serve up to 1,000 more students.
Leuchtenberger said he’s seen food insecurity affect students like him firsthand, and it needs to be addressed.
LEUCHTENBERGER: A lot of college students, they like eating out in Dinkytown, going to Chipotle and stuff like that. And I go to Chipotle, but I do know friends who, like, if we’re in a group and we’re like, “Oh, we should go to like D.P. Dough” or something like that, they kind of shift back a little bit and like, “I got food at home.”
And it’s just small things like that that you kind of, you just pick up on.
And then you get to know these people and the fact that your friends in college who are going through a very similar academic experience and just like life experience at this time are also struggling with food insecurity is just kind of crazy to me.
And just another thing that college students shouldn’t have to worry about. And well, children and just people in general shouldn’t have to worry about.
AIGNER: Wallerstedt said the SNAP freeze made an already difficult time in which food banks and pantries need to work together to support Americans in need, even more difficult.
WALLERSTEDT: Deep in my heart, I am worried for people, the people that we serve, and the anxiety of not knowing when your SNAP benefits are coming, when you’ll have the money to purchase food again, I think is really, really scary.
And also to be kind of caught in the sort of political tug of war. It’s like 42 million Americans, right, who are the losers of the shutdown and like these are folks that do not need additional stress put on them. I think most people like it when we’re in control, right? And this feels like a very nebulous space where there’s not a lot that I can control in this space.
However, this is the first time that we have not seen SNAP benefits go out in time for folks and these times also breed a lot of innovation and creativity. And so I’m also like, well, I’m doing my best to realize that I can’t control everything, there is still a question in my head of what can I control and what can I do in my position to ensure that more support is going out to folks?
AIGNER: The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, approved by Congress on July 1, will make changes to SNAP eligibility. Young adults who’ve aged out of foster care, and people who are homeless or veterans will now need to prove that they are working to receive SNAP benefits. These groups were previously exempt from the work requirement. The bill will also change eligibility requirements for U.S. immigrants, however these changes have not been announced.
Dolynchuk said he worries Americans’ struggles with food insecurity will only worsen in today’s sociopolitical climate.
DOLYNCHUK: The thing that I constantly worry about is having a perpetual continued loss and degradation of support for those very people. I mean, these are already people that, I get choked up about it, I mean, they have to scrape up every ounce of dignity to even come into a food shelf, right?
And so not only the least that we can provide is dignity back in terms of how we treat them. But they really perpetually feel like, you know, they’re the last, they’re the lost and they’re the forgotten. And it’s such a shame in a country that is so abjectly wealthy that we see the money being spent all over the place and outside of the U.S. for things that could make such a meaningful difference in the lives of the people that are really the most disenfranchised in the country today.
And so my fear is that this is not a temporary issue with SNAP, that this is a perpetual thing that we, we suffer through.
AIGNER: I hope hearing from students, community organizers and university staff helped clarify the complex issue of food insecurity. I’ve been covering food insecurity on Minnesota college campuses for almost two years. It’s an issue that’s extremely important to me and that’s affecting hundreds of thousands of Minnesotans—and millions of Americans—every day.
If you are a U of M student struggling with food insecurity there are resources that can support you. Nutritious U will be open in Coffman Union on Nov. 19 and 20. Also, the Community Emergency Service food pantry is located at the corner of South 11 Ave. and East 19 St.. You can take the number two bus line from Coffman Union to get to the pantry.
If you think SNAP could help you, I encourage you to see if you are eligible—especially with the new eligibility expansion for Minnesota college students. There is a link to Minnesota’s SNAP website in the transcript for this episode on the Minnesota Daily website.
That’s all I have for you today folks! This episode was written by Grace Aigner and produced by Ceci Heinen. Thanks for listening and if you have any questions, comments or concerns, don’t be afraid to send us an email at [email protected]. I’d love to hear from you.
My name is Grace Aigner, be well and I’ll talk to you next time on In The Know.
