Snap Benefits
Advocacy Call to Action
Ask Congress to Protect November SNAP Benefits
Right now, Republicans control the U.S. Senate, House of Representatives and Executive Branch (e.g., federal agency leadership, like USDA). This means that co-ops and citizens who are represented by Republican lawmakers can be especially influential right now. If your lawmakers are Republican, it’s important that they hear from you on this and other issues you care about, even if you believe they disagree with your position.
To advocate on behalf of our SNAP shoppers to keep receiving their benefits regardless of whether the government remains shutdown, contact your elected officials with the following script, which is National Co+op Grocer’s recommended strategy but can be modified if you would like:
My name is [____] and I am an owner of a SNAP authorized grocery cooperative. I am deeply concerned that we will not be able to serve our shoppers due to insufficient federal funding for SNAP. Due to the shutdown, I am asking the [Congressman/woman/person] to urge USDA Secretary Rollins to release funds available to USDA in the SNAP Contingency Reserve to be used to fund November SNAP benefits and issue clear guidance to states on how to navigate benefit issuance. Additionally, please urge USDA to use its statutory transfer authority or any other legal authority to fully fund November benefits.
How to Contact Congress
You can contact your elected officials by calling the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and telling them your address, or by looking up your legislators on GovTrack.US (scroll down to find the look-up tool). When you call, a staffer will answer and write down your comments to share with the Congressperson. They won’t argue with you or ask you to justify yourself. When they hear from a lot of people in their state or district about an issue, they DO pay attention. Note that while there is legislation in play from Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) that could fund SNAP during the shutdown, it could also jeopardize shutdown negotiations in a way that could result in increases to peoples’ healthcare plans. For this reason, at this time we are not recommending support for that particular legislation, and are instead recommending the strategy described in the script above.