Cuts halt free food distribution
Staff writer
A program that provides free food to more than 250 low-income county families every two months received an unwelcome surprise Tuesday.
Kansas Department of Children and Families announced that food would not be shipped to the county or anywhere else in the department’s west region this month due to a lack of federal funding.
“DCF has not received the required federal administrative funds to cover the shipping expenses associated with June deliveries,” the department said in a statement. “Without that federal financial support, DCF is unable to complete the scheduled food deliveries for June. Once funds are received, we will resume shipments.”
Department on Aging director Lu Turk, who helps run the commodities program in Marion County, said she had been frustrated by recent lack of communication from DCF.
Turk said DCF usually notified her and others about food to be received, shipment details, and distribution dates during the last week of the previous month.
But by late May, Turk had not received a message, and no one at DCF could tell her what was going on.
Other residents were trying to figure out the same thing.
“Everyone under the sun was calling [DCF],” Turk said. “They probably had about a hundred voicemails every day.”
DCF telling her it was struggling with funding earlier would have given her more time to try to solve the problem, Turk said.
We have to reach out for volunteers to come in and help, and they need to set that day aside,” Turk said. “We were frustrated because we couldn’t get anyone to answer anything.”
Commodities typically are delivered on the third Wednesday of every other month.
A DCF driver picks up the food in Concordia and takes it to Marion Senior Center.
From there, volunteer drivers from various towns in the county pick up their communities’ share of the food.
Marion and Lost Springs residents pick up their food directly from the senior center.
“I have a note on the front door now because people are going to start coming in and asking if we’re doing commodities,” Turk said.
The program provides food assistance to 72 families in Marion and Lost Springs; 15 in Burns; 48 in Florence; 24 in Hillsboro; 13 in Lincolnville; 24 in Peabody; 12 in Pilsen; 12 in Tampa; 24 in Ramona; and 12 in Goessel.
“It’s sad, because so many people rely on commodities,” Turk said.
County administrator Tina Spencer has been in contact with Turk about trying to find a driver to go to Concordia and get the food.
“If I could half drive a truck, I’d go get it,” Turk said.
But it will be difficult. The senior center already struggles with having enough volunteer drivers to get seniors to doctor’s appointments each week.
Turk also worried that federal issues might be the start of further cuts to social programs.
“We were kind of scared that something like this would happen,” she said. “The SNAP program has been in jeopardy too.”
President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill,” which has passed the House of Representatives and will go to the Senate this summer, will cut $300 billion from SNAP through 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and tighten restrictions on social programs like Medicaid.
“The United States is supposed to be world class, and yet we’ve got veterans who are starving to death, living on the streets,” Turk said. “There is no reason in the world that anyone should be hungry in the United States of America.”