The year has flown by and once again we find ourselves at Autumn. I have always enjoyed Autumn, especially as a child growing up in North Carolina where summer and its humidity seemed to last so long. Autumn brought bright sunny days amid the crisp fall temperatures and even though the leaves of the trees were dying, they were showing forth their true colors—reds, yellows, varying shades of gold and brown and even something I call purple. The last of the summer flowers were still bright with blooms as they held out to the very end. The varying shades of orange in my grandpa’s pumpkin patch were beautiful. And still, I feel that the sights and sounds and smells of Autumn are unforgettable.
I didn’t pay much attention when I was a child, but as I grew older I realized that Autumn is a time of preparation. When I was the Director of Crosslines and the Parish House–an Ecumenical help agency and United Methodist Mission project located in Buckhannon, WV–I became more and more aware of the need to think about the cold winter that knocks at our doors at this time of the year and the need to prepare for it.
And of course, Autumn means that Thanksgiving comes again.
The first Autumn that I worked at Crosslines and the Parish House, I thought a lot about what families would do if they did not have the means to gather their loved ones together on the special day that we call Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving has always been my favorite holiday. Always. As a child we nearly always celebrated with my mother’s family at my grandparents’ farm. Early on the special meal included fried oysters, but as my grandmother became sick and bedridden, we reverted to the traditional turkey. Thanksgiving is a natural day to slow down, give thanks with grateful hearts, and to celebrate family and being together.
So, I was pleased to find a practice already in place, at Crosslines, to provide area families with the means to celebrate with family and friends around a table filled with the traditional turkey and all the trimmings including pumpkin pie. Every year that I was there as director we saw an increase of families that needed help for their celebration. Without the generosity of the Upshur County community, the preparations of Autumn and the anticipation of Thanksgiving would not have happened.
So, we are at that time of preparation again, but this year feels a little more ominous to me. There will be no SNAP benefits paid out to families this year in November. SNAP benefits have never been about paying for all the food for families who are trying to make ends meet on very little money. It has always been a supplement for families living below the poverty line or folks on disability—SNAP=Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. At least 1/3 of households receiving SNAP are working households with some, but not enough income. Some of the households have people on disability or children or both. The people that broke my heart the most were households where there had been hard working people for decades, but only had Social Security in their retirement years. The average SS payout for many of these households is only around $1000 per month. There has always been a strict adherence to the rules and more than once I have worked with families who have lost their benefits because a deadline or a detail was missed.
A report published in June of 2025 by the USDA provides key information that I think is important for all of us to know:
Key Takeaways
SNAP provides food assistance to the most vulnerable. The vast majority of individuals participating in the program are children, older adults, or individuals with a disability. The report highlights that 39 percent of participants were children, 20 percent were older adults, and 10 percent were individuals with disabilities. Additionally, 73 percent of households participating in SNAP had a gross monthly income at or below the federal poverty line. In fiscal year 2023, the income level for a family of four at the federal poverty line was $27,750.
SNAP serves people of all racial and ethnic backgrounds. Among program participants, over 35 percent identified as White, nearly 26 percent as African American, nearly 16 percent as Hispanic, 4 percent as Asian, and a little over 1 percent as Native American. It should be noted that 17 percent of participants are listed as “race unknown.”
SNAP helps workers make ends meet. Nearly one-third of SNAP households have earned income. For SNAP households with children, 55 percent had earned income. The average SNAP household’s gross monthly income is $1,059 and net income is $527.
Most SNAP households do not receive cash welfare benefits. Only 3 percent of all SNAP households, and only 7.8 percent of SNAP households with children, receive benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
SNAP lifts households out of poverty. Among households participating in SNAP, 17 percent moved above the federal poverty line when SNAP benefits were included in gross income, and 10 percent of the lowest-income SNAP households moved out of deep poverty.
Despite the many benefits of the program, SNAP benefit levels continue to be woefully inadequate. About 36 percent of SNAP households receive the maximum allotment. The other 64 percent of participating households receive less than the maximum. The average benefit is just $6 per person per day. As described in a prior FRAC analysis, the greatest shortcoming of SNAP is that benefits for most households are not enough to get them through the entire month without hunger or being forced to sacrifice nutrition quality.
Three passages of scripture come to me as I think about the situations of families in and all around us. The first is the passage of Jesus feeding a crowd of people—estimated at around 5000 people. This story was important for the followers of Christ to pass down to all of us, to know how important it is to Jesus that people are fed and should not be hungry physically or spiritually. This story is found in all four Gospels.
The second is the passage found in Matthew 25 when Jesus challenges us to feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, visit the sick and imprisoned, offer water to the thirsty, welcome the stranger, and clothe the naked. Jesus is very clear that these are the actions of those who follow him and for those who pray to follow the path of Christ.
The third passage comes from the 18th chapter of Luke and encourages us to bring children to Jesus: “But Jesus called for them and said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. 17 Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
I think as we reach this November and the certainty that people will go hungry, Christ is calling us to do whatever we can to help feed the hungry. Parkersburg Urban Ministry (Parkersburg, WV) has said that anything will help but especially they need canned meat and soup. Both of our churches join together each month to provide a homecooked meal at the Latrobe St. Mission and Momma T.’s who feeds the hungry every week is another program offering meals that we support. What else can we do?
The average cost of a Thanksgiving meal for a family of four has been determined to be $35. If there are guests invited, the average family can count on at least $100 for ten people. This is just the basic meal—turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans, stuffing, rolls, and a pumpkin pie. I don’t know about you, but our family requires turkey, mashed potatoes, homemade gluten free biscuits, green beans, stuffing—both regular and gluten free–cranberry/orange salad, pumpkin roll for breakfast, lots of coffee, hot apple cider, a special cranberry/ginger ale punch, pumpkin pie, apple crisp, and gluten free pumpkin dessert. I am challenging myself to keep track of how much we spend on our family Thanksgiving meal this year and to offer my family the opportunity to give what we spent this year to PUM for the food pantry. I am also going to increase my canned goods donation to PUM as well.
While this is mainly addressed to my congregations in Parkersburg, WV, the thoughts behind this article can apply anywhere, especially in the USA. Please ponder what hunger looks like where you live and let me know in the comments.
What will you do? Will you join me?
Peace, Alicia
prayers of my heart, a collection of articles and writings by C. Alicia Randolph 