As the government shutdown readies to enter its third week, impact on federal workers is starting to be felt. Krista Garofalo, the chief strategy officer for Treasure Coast Food Bank, said they've been feeling the hit.
"We have seen about a 10 to 15 percent increase in the number of requests that we normally receive. We're hearing from our agency partners as well that they're seeing a bit of an uptick, too. And that was in addition to the increases they have been seeing over the last couple of months, just due to people struggling to make ends meet," she said.
Krista said that the food bank, which already serves over 250,000 residents weekly, has seen an increase in concerned federal workers.
"The people that have come to us so far, I think they were just anticipating that if the government didn't come back to business as usual, they would be struggling. Today's the first day of their partial missed paychecks, so that's where it became kind of real," she said.
As of now, there are still some safety nets in place for food and security. However, that could change.
"The government right now does have enough funding to be able to fund SNAP benefits through the end of October. If the shutdown continues longer and into the month of November, that's when we're going to see whether or not there could be an impact to benefits. If that is the case in our area, that could impact almost 80,000 people," she said.
For now, the food bank has been largely unaffected by the shutdown, but they are eyeing the situation as it continues.
"Right now, we're not necessarily experiencing any sort of specific impacts from the shutdown. I do know that everything we planned in terms of food from the government that we had scheduled to receive is still, so far, on track because it was planned before the shutdown. I will say that right now, we can't order any more food.
"So depending on how long this continues, it could impact our inventory levels — maybe not necessarily next month, but the month after and the month after that," she said.
Krista said that now is a great time to help, and there are multiple ways to do so.
"If people are interested in donating, they can donate food or they can donate money for us to be able to purchase food. Because of some of those cuts earlier in the year to funding and to some of the actual food products, we are purchasing more and more food. In order to keep up with the demand from that and from this, we are always looking for people to donate financially if they can. But if they prefer to donate food, we will always accept food," she said.
You can donate to or access services from Treasure Coast Food Bank on their website.