Frequently Asked Questions About COVID-19 Food Assistance

Some help came via the federal government and it’s CARES Act, which helped people get $1,200 stimulus checks and $600 weekly unemployment benefits for a specified period. What about food assistance, though? What if you need help securing food, so your family doesn’t suffer? Here are various ways to get that help now.

1. What’s the best way to get emergency food assistance?

If you can’t go another day without food, you’ll need emergency assistance. It may be temporary, but it can keep your family from starving until you get things figured out financially.

You have several options when it comes to emergency food assistance. First, you can call 211 to speak to an operator that can tell you where to find food near you. Second, you can call the National Hunger Hotline between Monday and Friday during the hours of 7 am to 10 pm to get similar assistance. The hotline’s number is 866-3-HUNGRY.

While those are direct ways of finding emergency food assistance, you may get lucky by keeping tabs on your local news. Many food drives are popping up daily, and they use the news to broadcast their time and location. Should you see an announcement about a food drive or distribution site, don’t wait to go. Lines are often long, so you want to secure your spot to ensure you get food before it’s too late.

The Internet has several resources for emergency food assistance as well. There are directories where you can find food banks, food pantries, soup kitchens, and similar forms of assistance very quickly.

For instance, Feeding America has over 60,000 food pantries and 200 food banks in its directory. All you have to do is go to this page and enter your zip code to see what’s available. From there, you can contact each resource to see what’s needed to get food today.

2. How can food stamps help during the pandemic?

Food stamps, or SNAP benefits can give you some much-needed stability when it comes to nutrition. Should you qualify, you can get a certain amount of money loaded to a card each month that you can use to purchase groceries.

By having SNAP benefits, you won’t have to worry as much about food during the pandemic. This will make it easier for you to get on your feet and concentrate on other things.

To see if you can qualify for SNAP, go here. It’s worth noting that getting SNAP is a bit easier now, as they relaxed some requirements due to COVID-19.

3. What food assistance is best if you have very young children or are pregnant?

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is ideal for such a situation. It gives you the power to buy nutritional products like milk, baby formula, etc.