Food insecurity in Central New York could get a lot worse. Currently Feeding America reports one in seven people in the region are food insecure. At a news conference outside Catholic Charities Oswego Food Pantry in Fulton Tuesday, Democratic US Senator Chuck Schumer drew attention to SNAP, the Supplemental Nutrition Program, which is in line to lose $300 billion in federal funding under President Donald Trump’s self-dubbed “One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“It's not a big, beautiful bill,” Schumer retorted, then renamed it, “It's an ugly bill in many, many ways that affects millions of people in America and hundreds of thousands here in Central New York.”
He estimated the bill would kick more than 30,000 families in New York off their health insurance and lead to the largest Medicaid cuts in history.
“There'd be a $13 billion hole for Medicaid,” he warned for New York’s vulnerable. “The counties would be forced to pick up the tab,” and if they can, he foreshadowed, “tens of thousands would be thrown out who work in hospitals and nursing homes.”
Circling the healthcare shortage back to SNAP, Schumer pointed out that, “If you don't have health care, you got to pay for medicine, and then you can't pay for food.”
It is a chilling reality for Karen Belcher, the Food Bank of CNY’s Executive Director, a service helping people in 11 counties along Central and Northern New York, as well as the Mohawk Valley.
“This would be the biggest cut to snap in its history, coming at a time of change and deep uncertainty that is contributing to an increased demand and need for food assistance in our service area. SNAP cuts will be devastating for our neighbors, especially children and older adults. Food is not a privilege, it is a basic human right.”
She cited the most recent data from Feeding America’s report showing that one in five children in Central New York counties face food insecurity, and the figure jumped .7% between 2022 and 2023.
“Oswego County, where we are today has one of the highest food insecurity rates for individuals and children in the state and in the country rates of 14.5% and 20.3 respectively.”
She realizes those figures are already two years old and looking ahead, under the cloud of uncertainty that is Trump’s “Big, beautiful, bill,” she must calculate the damage about to unfold by the demand knocking on the food bank’s doors today.
“We are seeing anywhere from a 5 to 6% in increased [food] pounds going to our partners,” Belcher explained, noting that those figures reflect rising food costs under tariff wars.
Tim Bryant stepped to the podium as one of the millions who unexpectedly found themselves needing food pantry donations. His struggles stretched for several years while unable to work as he recovered from a traumatic brain injury.
“I've learned that people living with disabilities are more than twice as likely to face food insecurity,” he shared that the system doesn't make space for people recovering, adapting, or rebuilding their lives after a catastrophe. “Cuts to SNAP would be devastating, not just to our health, but to our dignity.”
Dressed in a simple gray biblical cloak, Brother Christopher Fernandez offered a look at the spirit of humility Bryant and others face when asking for help at a pantry for the first time.
“Can we be more generous as a nation," he asked, "as in Scripture, the small child that brought the five loaves and the two fish to Jesus in the Gospel of John? Can we be like that child with that generosity?”
He oversees the Food Pantry & Soup Kitchen at Assumption Church of Syracuse. Next to him, stood Sister Donna McGartland of Saint Frances and the Newman communities in Syracuse.
"We see it in the kids, in our schools. We see it in our daycare centers. It's real. It is very real. My concern for the kids is during the summer when they're not there in school,” she is worried that without SNAP assistance, families will be left with a few dollars a day to feed their children, “They're going to go hungry. At $5 a day per child, they're not going to receive one meal a day.”
As the bill marches over to the Senate, she will pray the collective conscience does right by the poor.
“Our sisters have been in Syracuse for almost 175 years," she reminded the small crowd, "and we always always stand on the side of the poor and those who are less fortunate and we will continue to do so through this budget bill that we hope does not pass and through a lot of the other things that are being passed in our government.”
Schumer broadened the scope to what the bill means for the nation, “Eleven million people will go hungry under this bill.” To his Republican counterparts who have called funding for SNAP and other food assistance programs a form of grovernment waste, fraud, and abuse, he asked, “Is feeding that hungry 7 year old waste? Is feeding that hungry 7 year old fraud? Is feeding that hungry 7 year old abuse? Give me a break!”
As the Senate begins taking up the House Budget bill, Schmuer said he and his fellow democrats will hold the line against the cuts. He urged people to reach out to Republican Senators and demand they reject cutting SNAP money, not because it is a political issue…but a moral one.
