Today, one in eight Kansans struggles with food insecurity, including one in five children. An estimated 38% of Kansas households lack the resources to meet basic needs, and food is often the first resource to fall behind compared to transportation and monthly bills. 

Those numbers highlight just how many of our colleagues, friends, neighbors and students are struggling to meet their own nutritional needs as well as the needs of their families. Hunger, however, is still a hidden struggle.

We can walk down the aisle at the grocery store and never know that the person beside us is silently calculating whether they have enough to cover the weight of an onion. Someone else may be checking the balance on their EBT card, wondering how $12 will stretch for the rest of the month. 

During the recent government shutdown and pause to federal food assistance programs, such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), the scale of hunger came into sharp focus. We heard heartbreaking stories from our partners across the state. We saw so many of our friends and neighbors in need. And then we witnessed something truly special about Kansas.

How we show up to meet the moment, and that at our core, we care for one another.

Food banks, pantries and community organizations banded together to feed individuals and families. Restaurants and coffee shops, farmers and grocery stores, places of worship, nonprofits and businesses stepped up to help them. And then came an influx of outreach, both from people looking for assistance and from people looking to support.

The way we come together as a community, as a state, is so, so beautiful. There was an immediate response to meet an emergency need, but it is not a sustained solution. It is not long-lasting. And it is not a replacement for what our government can do to support the social safety net and food security.

Programs and Support

Federal food assistance programs like SNAP, Meals on Wheels and free and reduced-price school meals are not intended to cover the full cost of a person’s or a family’s monthly nutritional needs. They’re used in times of emergency or as a supplement to an existing gap—and still too often are not enough.

That’s where the charitable food system steps in.

Community organizations, food banks, food pantries and nonprofits work alongside federal programs to form a network of support that helps bridge the gap for households experiencing food insecurity. But the need is often far greater than the system’s capacity, which also relies on the generosity of volunteers and donors to operate. Feeding America reported that for every meal provided by their food banks, SNAP provides nine—highlighting the scale of support required when federal programs like SNAP are paused. 

During the government shutdown, nearly 188,000 Kansans were affected by delayed SNAP funding, including more than 65% of families with children. With four in 10 Kansas households unable to meet their basic needs, hunger was already a crisis. Across the country, for 43 days, it became a catastrophe.

The Role We Play

Hunger Free Kansas is committed to ensuring a future in which every Kansan has access to nutritious food. We collaborate across sectors—agriculture, education, government, health care—and with nonprofit and for-profit organizations to tackle the challenges of food insecurity and improve health statewide.

Awareness and attention are at the forefront of our work. Every one of us has a role in ensuring that no Kansan goes hungry. An “out of sight, out of mind” mentality cannot impede the work of the organizations doing so much for communities in need. 

We focus on helping Kansas’ charitable food system: 

• Advocate for policies and partnerships that directly address the root causes of hunger.
• Bridge gaps and build relationships between organizations in the anti-hunger network. 
• Collaborate across sectors and activate a diverse group of stakeholders. 
• Remove barriers to accessing resources like SNAP and healthy foods in grocery stores.

Textron Aviation’s Wings for Dreams exemplifies our work. Alongside the Boys & Girls Clubs of South Central Kansas and Wichita Habitat for Humanity, Hunger Free Kansas is participating in Wings for Dreams’ pilot program, intending to support healthy households and neighborhoods in Northeast Wichita. In November, Wings for Dreams raised $5.35 million to fund this massive effort aimed at transforming the lives of 300 youth. 

When communities, corporate partners and nonprofit support organizations come together to share their strengths, resources, time and voices… that’s when we can make a real difference.

Four Actions to Take

If there is a silver lining to all of this, it is that greater attention and awareness were given to an issue that existed long before the government shutdown—but a crisis shouldn’t be a catalyst. 

To prevent future catastrophes, we have to strengthen both the charitable food system and the federal food assistance programs that feed so many people and the many more who still need help. 

The best ways to support these systems are to donate food, money and time through volunteering. There’s also a fourth action we cannot overlook.

Using our voices. 

Our voices matter in city halls and community meetings, in our places of worship and in conversations with colleagues, family and friends. We must keep bringing attention and awareness to these issues and take on the role we all must play to solve them.

Hunger is real, and it is solvable. No Kansan should be hungry.