‘It’s OK to ask for help’: New SNAP recipient looks to food pantry amid uncertainty
Editor’s note, 1:42 p.m. Oct. 31: In a bench ruling out of Rhode Island, a federal judge has ordered the Trump administration to pay federal nutrition benefits to millions of Americans amid the government shutdown using emergency funds. It wasn’t immediately clear if and when SNAP benefits will proceed.
On a chilly Thursday morning, a couple dozen volunteers gathered in front of the Wild Flower Community School in Wichita to give boxes full of food to families in need.
The Table of Hope Food Pantry, a service of Metropolitan Community Church, handed out food to about 200 families.
Tia Bivens is part of one of those families. She has gone to other food pantries in the past and started using Table of Hope when it moved into the school, where she works.
“Using the food pantries helps us to be able to keep a roof over our heads, the lights on, the water going, the trash picked up and to be able to feed our family,” she said.
Her family also just started receiving SNAP, or Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, benefits. Now, they are among roughly 188,000 Kansans set to lose those benefits Nov. 1 as the government shutdown moves into its second month.
Bivens, her husband and child received about $580 in October in SNAP benefits.
“We started the process back in August, got approved in later September, and then there were issues with our card, so we didn’t even get our card until … three weeks ago,” Bivens said. “So we didn’t even get anything until a couple of weeks ago, and now all of a sudden, [we] may not even have anything.”
Bivens began using food pantries in 2020 when her husband was furloughed because of the pandemic. He later became ill. When he returned to work at Textron, workers went on strike and he was without work for some time. He became ill again in February and hasn’t worked since. While they do receive some money from long-term insurance benefits, it is a quarter of the income that they used to have.
“It’s been really, really difficult trying to balance the bills and make sure rent is paid and all of our other bills are taken care of,” Bivens said.
Food pantries like Table of Hope could take on even more importance if SNAP payments are not sent to families. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has said the agency’s contingency funds can not be used to directly cover the benefits, which are issued to more than 40 million Americans every month. Twenty-five states are part of a lawsuit challenging that stance; a judge heard arguments in the case Thursday.
“They’ll have frozen food. They’ll have pre-made food … in pans that they just heat up, and then they’ll have dry food to make meals,” the Rev. Jackie Carter of Table of Hope said.
The boxes were packaged inside the school, and then placed on a 20-foot expandable roller and then rolled out to the line of cars waiting on W. 16th Street.
‘It’s okay to ask for help’
Bivens said it has been disheartening to read the negative comments made about people who rely on SNAP benefits.
“They don’t know the hoops you have to go through just to get approved and then to be recertified every year,” Bivens said. “We didn’t even qualify last year, we didn’t qualify until this year, and we waited as long as we could before we even tried to apply. We waited until the very last minute, and I was like, we have to do this. We have no other options. We’ve exhausted all of our other resources.”
“You don’t try to get on SNAP just to play the system. You get on SNAP because you don’t have any other choice,” Bivens said.
There are food pantries available across Wichita, but Bivens said SNAP cuts add extra hurdles to receive food.
“With SNAP, it helps to not have to search for the open food pantries every week. I didn’t have to keep a calendar of which food pantry is open which week, and where can I go to who only has a once a month limit? Who can I see twice a month?” Bivens said.
Bivens said one of the hardest things for people seeking help to put food on the table is getting over the stigma.
“Is your pride more important than your kid’s empty stomach?” Bivens said. “It’s okay to ask for help [and] it’s okay to receive help.”
Asked what main message she wanted to send people, Bivens said the importance of community.
“America is such a big country on independence and building yourself up and everything like that, that we sometimes forget ... that we need community as well in order to have our independence,” Bivens said.
A ‘rough patch’
Carter said that the pantry is being “overrun” by people who need help. She thinks it could be because of the upcoming SNAP cuts, but she can’t be sure.
The pantry, which has been operating for 27 years, moved into the school three months ago.
“It is what that particular faith community believes that they’re supposed to do is to be the hands and feet of God, and so this is how they do it,” Carter said.
To prepare for the SNAP cuts, Carter said she is in talks with the Food Bank “to see about doing maybe a special one-time handout or something. It depends on what we are capable of doing.”
“I haven’t gotten an answer yet, so I just have to keep trying,” she said.
Brian Walker, the president and CEO of the Kansas Food Bank, said on Tuesday that the food bank and other food resources were preparing.
“Common sense says that [when] these people … lose their SNAP benefits, we’re going to see increased demands at our pantries, our soup kitchens and maybe even our shelters and those kinds of places in the state of Kansas,” Walker said.
In response to that possibility, he is asking those who can to donate money, groceries or time to be a volunteer.
“We’re not asking for a whole lot, we’re just asking for a little bit to get us through what appears to be might be a rough patch,” he said.
Table of Hope is open most Thursdays from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and is by appointment only. To set up an appointment, you can visit Table of Hope’s website at TableOfHopeICT.org. You can see a list of food resources available across the state at KansasFoodSource.org.
This story was originally published October 30, 2025 at 5:42 PM.
