The candles are lit. Stockings are hung. Families gather around tables with an assortment of dishes. For many, this is the typical picture of a holiday season.
But what does a holiday look like when there isn’t enough food to go around for all?
Although our plates are full, it’s hard to stomach the turkey and dressing this year knowing that if Thanksgiving had occurred only a few weeks prior, 41.7 million Americans may not have had a meal on the food-centered holiday.
Marshall University and the city of Huntington are no strangers to this issue; food insecurity is something many of our classmates and neighbors quietly face year-round.
On Oct. 1, the U.S. government entered its longest shutdown in history due to a disagreement across parties on how to extend federal funding, resulting in the temporary pause of several federally-funded services.
As the war in Washington waged on through Nov. 12, Americans participating in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, colloquially known as Food Stamps, were left to decide what necessities they would use their limited budgets on for the month: to pay bills, to buy medication or to put food on the table.
In Huntington, nearly 80% of those served by Facing Hunger Foodbank, located at 1327 7th Ave, were affected by the shutdown. The foodbank serves approximately 130,000 individuals across 17 counties in West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky each year.
Across the nation, college students, as a low-income demographic, were no exception to this issue; even if you were not affected, you could’ve been sitting next to someone in class who faced these same decisions as SNAP benefits halted. According to a 2024 report from the Institute for College Access and Success, about 1.1 million college students receive SNAP benefits, even though 4.5 million meet the SNAP income threshold.
How have lawmakers reacted?
Although the government shutdown has ended and West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey announced the full restoration of SNAP funding for West Virginians on Nov. 13, we must not forget the actions of our lawmakers during the shutdown.
When the state found an extra $13 million in its budget from taxpayer dollars, rather than expediting the money to our foodbanks, Morrisey challenged West Virginians to match the $13 million in donations.
As one in six, with over 71,000 of those being children, West Virginians prepared to lose access to an essential part of their budget, Morrisey badgered the rest of his low income state and held the money we had already paid.
The situation in Washington was not much different. As the Trump Administration knowingly sat on a $4.6 billion contingency fund, U.S. District Judge John McConnell, Jr. ordered the administration to distribute the funding as soon as possible, citing SNAP’s suspension as “arbitrary” and “likely to cause irreparable harm.”
Had a federal judge not forced the administration to release the funding, it is unlikely we would have seen any financial aid efforts from the White House during the shutdown.
On Capitol Hill, personal greed and pettiness took precedent over the food insecurity of nearly 42 million Americans. SNAP benefits did not have to be cut but, instead, were chosen to be cut so as to pressure the Democrats to end the shutdown. From the public eye, millions witnessed Republicans and Democrats alike spend their time blaming one another, playing political pinball while our fellow Americans starved.
These are not political games; these are the lives of real people in Washington’s hands, and there is something exceptionally inhumane about using hunger as a political weapon against the opposing party.
Where are we now?
Nearly one month later, many states are facing delays in the restoration of SNAP benefits, and the Trump Administration says there is only $4.65 billion available in the Agriculture Department’s contingency fund to pay for them, which is roughly half of SNAP’s typical monthly budget.
Even though the U.S. is “experiencing the highest rates of food insecurity in a decade,” as Feeding America CEO Claire Babineaux-Fontenot told CNN in a Nov. 24 interview, the shutdown’s impact is, unfortunately, only the beginning of the trials to come for SNAP participants.
Under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, SNAP funding will be cut $187 billion through 2034, and revised qualification requirements could leave millions of low-income Americans without the food assistance they have come to rely on since the program was implemented over 60 years ago.
As the country’s cost of living skyrockets and the job market plummets, we, in 2025, living in a first-world country, risk seeing our neighbors, our classmates, our family members having to go without a basic human right: food.
And while food banks and church pantries stepped up around the nation to ensure as many were fed as possible during the 43-day shutdown, they are not equipped to fully replace SNAP benefits and are largely operating on budget cuts themselves.
While we must look out for one another by donating to food pantries and volunteering our time, it is essential that we urge our lawmakers to fight back against the elimination of every citizen’s right to provide food for themselves and their families. Call your representatives, take advantage of your right to protest and make your voice heard.
After all, Thanksgiving and Christmas are only two days out of the year; our lawmakers will not have to worry about where they will get a meal on these days, nor on the other 363 days of the year.
Hunger is not a partisan issue. But ignoring it is, and we cannot allow our leaders to keep weaponizing that choice.
