SAN ANTONIO – The San Antonio Food Bank is preparing for fewer federal dollars in its bowl.
The food bank feeds 105,000 people every week, thanks to roughly $180 million worth of donated food each year, which it augments with about $14.5 million worth of purchased food.
“Oftentimes, you know, we might have the pasta, but we don’t have the marinara,” President and CEO Eric Cooper said. “We have the peanut butter, but we don’t have the jelly.”
However, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has announced it’s ending a pandemic-era program that helped fund those purchases.
First offered in June 2022, the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program (LFPA) provided money to buy from local farms and producers.
A similar program for schools and childcare centers was also canceled.
“The COVID era is over — USDA’s approach to nutrition programs will reflect that reality moving forward,” a USDA spokesperson told the Associated Press in a statement.
However, Cooper says the loss of funding will be a blow.
He said LFPA had allowed the food bank to purchase about $3 million of grocery items per year.
“It’s about 20% of our food purchase program,” he said. “And it’s a big chunk, and we’ll feel it if the program isn’t brought back in a new, impactful way.“
The Texas Department of Agriculture administers the grant money. Cooper said the state agency warned them to prepare to go without.
“We were told you’ll receive payment for the current year. It’s the future funding that will be discontinued,” Cooper said.
A TDA spokesman told KSAT the San Antonio Food Bank has received $5.8 million so far through the LFPA Original and LFPA Plus and “the additional funding that was anticipated for the 2025 year had not been allocated to food banks at the time of termination.”
Cooper said people in need should not hesitate to come to the food bank, but fewer dollars could mean the food bank has to do more rationing.
“So what that means is where I gave you food for a week, I give you food for five days, I give you food for three days, or I’m giving you food for a day.”
Cooper is hopeful that the funding will eventually return in some form.
“At the end of the day, I hope this funding is restored in a new initiative to support farmers and growers and needy families,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
