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Local food banks face federal cuts to funding, food
NEWPORT — While Jill Monroe was waiting for her Social Security Disability Insurance, she had no income.
Monroe said she applied for Disability in 2022, about one year after quitting her accounting job at Newport Hospital and Health Services during the “very stressful” COVID-19 pandemic. Even without income, Monroe had to secure food for herself and her husband in the years before her disability benefits began. And groceries were only increasing in cost.
So instead of grocery stores, Monroe started making weekly trips to food banks: Cusick Food Pantry on Tuesdays, and the Kalispel Kupboard on Thursdays. They gave her meat, bread, milk, canned goods — enough food to fill about two large grocery bags per trip.
“It really, really helped us over that hump,” said Monroe, 58.
But Cusick Food Pantry may no longer be able to help clients like Monroe. Among other food banks in Pend Oreille and West Bonner Counties, Cusick Food Pantry receives support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, where national food assistance programs are experiencing cuts under President Donald Trump’s administration.
These cuts come while food insecurity rates are increasing in both Washington and Idaho, with more households signing up at Pend Oreille and West Bonner County food banks every month since 2022 or 2023.
“We have a great need out here,” said Joyce Beach, Cusick Food Pantry director. “We need to be providing a well-rounded menu and nutrition to make these people healthier. Because some of them are so poor, they have to decide, ‘Do I buy my medicine or do I buy food?’” In 2021, Cusick Food Pantry served 1,965 households with 3,749 household members. That number has almost doubled in the years since to 3,558 households with 9,600 household members in 2024.
Newport and Priest River Food Banks reported increases in clientele as well. About 150 households sign up at Newport Food Bank a month, and the clientele has more than doubled from 324 one month in 2010 to about 700 to 800 a month today. Priest River Food Bank serves over 200 households and more each month, many of whom were clients at Oldtown’s West Bonner County Food Bank before it closed about three years ago.
“It’s definitely increasing,” said Patty Ahlers, Priest River Food Bank manager. “I don’t see it ever decreasing.”
Cusick Food Pantry and Newport and Priest River Food Banks continue to have clients who are seniors from one- or two-person households, but many in the last few years have been younger from households with families. The largest household Cusick Food Pantry serves is a family of 10.
Natalie Babcock, 64, has been a client at Newport Food Bank for four or five years. She noted that clients there are not only younger and from larger households, but also more middle-class. Until a few years ago, “you never used to see those kind of clients much,” she said. “It was always more of the lower end, the poor people using it.”
USDA mainly supports Pend Oreille County food banks through two programs: The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, and the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program, or LFPA.
TEFAP Commodity Credit Corporation, a source of funding for TEFAP commodities, was recently cut by $4.7 million in deliveries scheduled from May through June to Washington food banks, including Cusick Food Pantry. As a result, they will no longer receive federally procured milk, dried plums and cranberries, canned chicken or turkey and chicken breasts. At Cusick Food Pantry, these protein items would have been used for clients’ monthly food boxes, Beach said.
Newport Food Bank also receives TEFAP commodities such as canned goods, meat, dried beans, rice, oats, pasta and fresh produce, but manager Pearl Pulford said none of their deliveries had been cancelled as of May 15.
“We have noticed anyway in the last year that we’ve had less food coming in, and that was a struggle,” Beach said. “And less protein.”
While USDA is honoring LFPA and LFPA Plus funds and grant agreements, LFPA25 funding for 2025–2027 was recently terminated. Like other feeding programs involved in LFPA, Cusick Food Pantry receives funding based on county and food bank size.
“I spend all of that money that we had the last biennium on food,” Beach said. “Because we try to round out what we don’t get from TEFAP.”
Priest River Food Bank accepts some monthly commodities from USDA, but no funding. Meanwhile, funding from USDA allocated for food makes up less than 1% of the Kalispel Kupboard’s budget.
Nevertheless, Medicaid is facing a proposed $600 billion cut over 10 years and a $400 billion cut to USDA — $230 million of which would be to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP — would affect all food banks in the country by expanding eligibility requirements for national food assistance. If those cuts pass, Beach anticipates even more clients at Cusick Food Pantry, which is already serving its most clients ever.
“Our challenge is going to be ahead of us,” Beach said.
Cusick Food Pantry is continuing to raise its own funds, write grants, connect with local grocery stores, partner with hunger relief agencies and collect both monetary and in-kind donations to replace support from USDA.
If Cusick Food Pantry and other food banks in the county were to lose that support, Monroe said it could be “devastating” for households like hers.
Monroe still tries to make trips to Cusick Food Pantry and the Kalispel Kupboard when she can, though her disability benefits now allow her to “cut back” on doing so, she said. Groceries and other expenses are still increasing in cost, and Monroe worries that not even disability will be enough to cover them all.
“Especially in this area, there’s a lot of low-income or no-income families that need help,” Monroe said. “There’s food out there. It’s just getting it to the people that need it.”
Emergency Food Pantry of Ione could not be reached for comment.
Hours, locations
* Newport Food Bank: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Tuesdays at 310 W. Pine St. in Newport * Cusick Food Pantry: 9 to 10:30 a.m. Tuesdays at 402 Riverside Rd. in Cusick * Kalispel Kupboard: 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays, 20 minutes north of Newport on Highway 20 at 150 Camas Flat Rd. in Cusick * Emergency Food Pantry of Ione: 10 to 11 a.m. Thursdays at 302 8th Ave. in Ione * Priest River Food Bank: Noon to 5:30 p.m. Tuesdays and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays at 45 S. McKinley St. No. 107 in Priest River
