Gainesville City Commission supports food bank as SNAP delays strain families

Press release from the City of Gainesville

GAINESVILLE, Fla. – At its November 6 meeting, the Gainesville City Commission approved allocating $100,000 to Bread of the Mighty Food Bank, a regional food distribution hub serving Alachua County and surrounding areas.

The support comes as the ongoing federal government shutdown has interrupted Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits for low-income families.

“We have about 12,000 residents in the city of Gainesville who depend on that –- and cannot depend on that right now,” said Gainesville Mayor Harvey Ward during the commission meeting. “This is a huge crisis that has approached every community in America, including ours.”

The City’s financial pledge follows a similar commitment Nov. 4 by the Alachua County Board of County Commissioners to the food bank and area organizations providing food assistance.

“With the cost of groceries rising as quickly as they have in the past year, the cost of living going up, more and more people are looking to the food bank for the lion’s share of their groceries,” said Patrick Dodds, executive director of Bread of the Mighty. “At the same time, we’ve seen the supply from our retail partners, where we get a lot of the donated product, going down. We’ve seen more than a 30% decrease in the amount of food coming in and a 100% increase in the number of people in line needing assistance. We haven’t seen numbers like this since COVID,” he said.

The motion to direct funding was made by City Commissioner Cynthia Chestnut and seconded by Commissioner Casey Willits, who also directed $1,000 from his travel and training budget for FY 2026 to support the food bank. The motion passed unanimously.

“In the months leading up to this, we were already at a tipping point at the food bank,” said Dodds. “We’re ordering food in real time, and we’ll continue to search all over the country. This will give us the ability to continue that pipeline.”