In 2025, the call to end hunger has never been more urgent. This year, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), faced unprecedented threats that required the Food Depository to step-up public support to protect our nation’s most effective tool against hunger.
In May 2025, as threats to cut SNAP circulated in D.C., our Food Equity Ambassadors and Community Council for Food Equity, groups that include food pantry leaders and neighbors with lived experience, participated in a Lobby Day on Capitol Hill. They met with several members of Congress and their staff, advocating passionately for the protection and strengthening of SNAP.
“It felt great to get to speak to the legislators about my experience,” said Keila Gonzalez, a 20-year-old student at Malcolm X College. She helped launch the pantry at New Hope Bible Church in Hermosa two years ago and continues to volunteer there today.
“I was so excited to do this, because I wanted to share with them my experience and the experiences of the people in my community who I serve every week.”
As Congress debated the budget reconciliation bill, which included drastic proposals to weaken SNAP, we seized every opportunity to highlight the program’s crucial impact on millions of participants nationwide.
“There’s power in unity. The more voices and examples of lived experiences we can bring in front of legislators, the more chance we have of making change.”
– Darriel Anderson, Food Equity Ambassador
In Illinois alone, SNAP is a nutritional lifeline for approximately 2 million people, providing essential food assistance to individuals, families, children, older adults, people with disabilities and veterans. For every meal provided by a food bank, SNAP provides nine.
Outraged by bad policy proposals and driven by the need to take action, supporters responded in record numbers to the urgent call for support at our Advocacy Action Center. The online platform makes it easier for participants to lift their voices in advocacy by providing template emails and call scripts to connect with legislators.
In fiscal year 2025, our advocacy network grew significantly, with over 2,100 advocates joining our Advocacy Action Center by June, marking a 180% increase from the previous year. Together, we sent more than 7,700 emails to Congress, opposing stricter work requirements for SNAP recipients and sweeping funding changes that would, for the first time ever, shift benefit costs to individual states.
While the budget reconciliation bill that passed in early July contained $200 billion in cuts to SNAP, our collective efforts nationwide led to modifications in the original proposals, lessening the severity of the changes. Though the passage of the bill was not the outcome we had hoped for, we are immensely proud of the way advocates continued to demand Congress protect key safety-net program. Our advocacy to end hunger continues.
Food Depository advocates also lifted their voices at the Illinois State Legislature. In April, our Food Equity Ambassadors and Community Council for Food Equity traveled to Springfield to lobby for two bills championed by the Food Depository. The first, the College Student Hunger Bill, aimed to simplify SNAP eligibility for students. The second bill sought to raise the minimum monthly SNAP benefit in Illinois from $23 to $75.
“There’s power in unity,” said Darriel Anderson, who has been managing the Circle Urban Ministries’ food pantry in Chicago’s Austin neighborhood for 10 years. She is also a graduate of the Food Depository’s Food Equity Ambassadors Program, and currently a member of the pilot “Food Equity Mobilizer” post-fellowship program.
“The more voices and examples of lived experiences we can bring in front of legislators, the more chance we have of making change,” said Anderson.
