This interview originally aired on 11/6/2025 on KEDT-FM's South Texas Midday.
Updates: https://www.kedt.org/texas-news/2025-11-11/texans-have-started-to-receive-partial-snap-payments
Among 3.5 million Texans, including 1.7 million children, are on the Supplemental Nutrition and Assistance Program (SNAP). As the government shutdown continues, many across the country still haven't seen full November benefits, which could take days to roll out. That has families across the region looking for help in ways they either depend heavily on or may not have considered, like their local food pantry.
ROB BOSCAMP: Joining me this afternoon is Coastal Bend Food Bank Executive Director Bea Hanson. This particular branch provides assistance to about 60,000 people in Nueces County and more in the surrounding area. Bea, good afternoon and thank you for joining us today.
BEA HANSON: Good afternoon, Rob. How are you doing?
ROB BOSCAMP: Doing pretty well on this Thursday. Hope you're doing well.
BEA HANSON: Yes, they're keeping me busy, and that's a good thing.
ROB BOSCAMP: With the suspension of SNAP benefits since last week. First off, let's talk about the food bank itself. How big of an area does the food bank service?
BEA HANSON: We service 11 counties all the way from Three Rivers in the north to Falfurrias in the south, and Alice and Duval County on the west.
ROB BOSCAMP: Kind of walk me through this past week. What has it been like in terms of the turnout, as far as assistance request? Has it gone up? Has it gone down? Where is it at?
BEA HANSON: Actually, I can go back a little farther during the month of October, just at the food bank. This is not the — we have 160 different distributions, but this is just the four distributions that we did at the food bank. We saw a 20 percent increase in individuals neighbors that had never asked for help from the food bank before, and that's very unusual. Now what is happening is that we are getting a lot of phone calls because people are getting scared, and so we have had to actually schedule distributions, because we're getting calls from, for example, the federal prison in Three Rivers, they have a lot of staff that are working every day, but they're not being paid. So we already did one distribution there. We're going to do another one, probably next week. We are helping other federal employees that have not been paid, and they are coming by the food bank to receive food. And we are waiting on the naval base and the base in Kingsville, who had already reached out to us. And as soon as we get there, okay, we will probably do distributions in those two bases as well. So it's almost like we're scheduling distributions, but we're having one for the general public on the 11th. It's going to be at the Robstown Richard Borchard Fairgrounds, and we are preparing for 1,200 families. It's really getting very busy. Let, the food, I can tell you, it is going out the door as fast as it's coming in. And for the first time, we have never had to do this before, but we are having to purchase.
ROB BOSCAMP: With that being said, what are listeners able to do if they're hearing this story and they say, 'I want to help out.' What can they do?
BEA HANSON: Well, several areas, volunteering at the food bank, because we are having to build the boxes for each one of those distributions. The second one also is, which our community has been very generous, and through the [Coastal Bend] Day of Giving, and some foundations and individuals had been giving us monetary donations, and that's how we have been able to go out.
ROB BOSCAMP: One of the other food banks we spoke with mentioned that monetary donations are the best option in terms of helping out, because you're able to move a little bit faster with those resources.
BEA HANSON: Well, and we can purchase food at wholesale price. And people are doing food drives, and which is very helpful as well, but people are going to their local grocery stores and purchasing the food retail price. So monetary donation give us the freedom to order a truckload for, say, chickens, which is about $40,000 to $45,000
ROB BOSCAMP: Are any of the food bank's services being affected with the suspension of the SNAP benefits,
BEA HANSON: Not necessarily. We have two employees that help families to apply for SNAP and other government benefits, and we're encouraging people to continue to do that, because as soon as this is lifted, they have the opportunity to be approved, so they are staying busy in that respect. But one of the programs that the government cut completely is our nutrition education program. And so, we are continuing to do nutrition education through the generosity of a local donor. They saved the program and they gave me enough money to operate the program this year. So we are continuing to do the nutrition education, because it's basic. We go into the schools. We do families and diabetes, etc. So we're in the business of offering food to people, and if we don't teach them how to eat properly and healthy. We may be part of the problem creating disease in families and diabetes, and we want people to stay healthy, our neighbors to stay healthy.
ROB BOSCAMP: And this is looking down the road, and hopefully we don't get to this point. But right now, we are in the longest federal government shutdown. Are there any long term plans or preparations that the food bank is gearing up for in case it goes on even longer.
BEA HANSON: You know, one of the main missions of the Food Bank is to respond in time of crisis. So we have been preparing for crisis, and we're always ready for a hurricane. And so, of course, we had the freeze we had the pandemic, so almost you can say we've been operating in "crisis mode" for the past two or three years. It's difficult now because food prices have gone up and we're having to purchase food because just the donations haven't been enough to meet the need. Other than that, we're operating pretty much in a way that we have been training for. I would love to thank the communities in our service area and beyond, because they realize that neighbors are in need, that they are in fear of losing what they have. I don't want to see any children going to bed hungry and without the help of the community, we couldn't do that, and they have poured out their resources to us. They have come to volunteer, and they're calling us all the time to see what they can do. And my heart goes to them. Thank you so much.
ROB BOSCAMP: Bea, thank you very much for your time.
BEA HANSON: Well, thank you for inviting me.
