A wall-to-wall whiteboard in Todd Blake’s Lynchburg office tells the story of Park View Community Mission.
Dry-erase smudges left behind from last week’s checklists peek through current updates printed in glossy black marker: 360 families served at the food pantry this week, 74 neighbors employed through the life skills institute this year, 1,000 students set to take backpacks of food home on the weekends.
The truth is, Blake said, numbers that measure the demand for Park View’s services increase so quickly that it’s best to write them in a place where they can be erased and rewritten.
In a time when the rising cost of living pushes more families toward Park View’s resources and the impact of federal funding cuts remains unknown, nothing can be marked in permanent ink, said Blake, the nonprofit’s executive director.
The nonprofit has barely been able to keep up with demand at its food pantry in recent years, adapting its operations and budget where it can to meet local needs. Now, Blake fears that even higher demand prompted by federal changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program could push Park View past the tipping point of its capacity.
“We pivot everyday,” Blake said. “Park View does that really well. But SNAP cuts will require more than a pivot. I can see it happening with my own eyes, what’s happening on the ground here.”
The true challenge is the uncertainty, Blake said. It’s impossible to plan when the numbers on your whiteboard change every day.
More than two months after Congress passed the One Big Beautiful Bill, state and local leaders still have more questions than answers regarding how federal cuts will affect the Virginians who rely on SNAP to get food on the table.
One thing those leaders know for sure is that food is expensive, and the federal government is splitting the check with states for the first time in SNAP’s history. The legislation is expected to shift up to $352 million of costs from the federal government onto the state of Virginia by October 2027, according to an analysis conducted by Voices for Virginia’s Children.
Local food bank and pantry leaders like Blake fear that they’ll be the ones actually footing the bill, as Virginians who lose their SNAP benefits or see them reduced will likely turn to charities for help.
“The charitable food distribution system was never prepared, nor are we prepared, to make up the difference. SNAP is supposed to be the first line of defense,” said Pamela Irvine, president and CEO of Feeding Southwest Virginia, a food bank based in Salem that distributes food to pantries across 26 counties. “But we’ll remain committed, and we want to provide hope, because we really believe there’s enough food, enough resources in this country that no one should go hungry.”
SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, is the country’s largest nutrition assistance program, according to a July report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The program provides low-income people with food assistance benefits that are calculated based on a person’s income, household composition and other factors. In fiscal year 2024, SNAP served 41.7 million people nationwide with an average benefit of $187 per month, according to the USDA’s report.
In Virginia, about $1.76 billion in federal SNAP benefits were distributed to 874,000 people — that’s about 10% of the state’s population — in fiscal year 2024, according to the Office of the Governor. More than half of those Virginians are expected to lose all or some of their benefits under new federal rules.
The One Big Beautiful Bill will reduce how much federal funding is distributed and how many people are eligible to receive benefits. The timeline and true impact of such changes are still largely unknown as local leaders wait for guidance from state officials, who wait for guidance from national policymakers. Here’s what we know so far about the gaps the legislation is expected to leave in SNAP — and who’s expected to fill them.
Federal legislation sets new rules for SNAP eligibility
The One Big Beautiful Bill, signed into law on July 4, will reduce federal spending for SNAP by $186 billion over the next 10 years, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office. The cuts will affect the more than 40 million Americans who receive SNAP benefits in different ways, as they arise from eight different sections of the megabill.
One section of the legislation expands SNAP’s work requirements. To meet requirements, work can be for pay or on a volunteer basis, according to Food and Nutrition Service guidelines, and can include hours accumulated through federal, state and local work training programs.
SNAP participants must work 20 hours a week to receive benefits, unless they fall into certain categories of exemption from the work requirement. Before July 4, being older than 54 or having a child under the age of 18 counted as an exemption.
Now, participants must be older than 64 or have a child under the age of 14 to qualify for work exemptions.
The legislation also removes work exemptions for veterans, people experiencing homelessness and former foster youth aged 18 to 24, according to a July Virginia General Assembly memorandum. Some exemptions, such as having a disability, being a student or caring for incapacitated family members, remain in place.
The new work requirements technically took effect as soon as the bill was passed in July. But they are not being enforced yet, as local social service agencies wait for implementation instructions.
About 2.4 million people nationwide are expected to no longer qualify for SNAP benefits due to the new work requirements, according to an August report from the Congressional Budget Office. Nearly 447,000 Virginians will lose some or all SNAP benefits, according to the memorandum.
It’s not that SNAP recipients don’t want to work, Irvine clarified. Instead, barriers stop some SNAP recipients from finding and keeping jobs. In rural areas like the Southwest Virginia region she serves, for example, a lack of public transportation, child care and job opportunities makes work requirements difficult to meet.
Work requirements have ripple effects beyond the person trying to meet them, said Preston Sellers, Lynchburg’s director of human services. Because SNAP benefits are calculated based on the number of eligible family members in a household, one person’s inability to meet work requirements could reduce the benefits for everyone in the home.
The federal legislation also removes SNAP eligibility for several categories of immigrants with granted humanitarian protections, such as refugees, those granted asylum and survivors of human trafficking. In Virginia, roughly 14,000 SNAP recipients fall into these categories, according to the memorandum.
Other sections of the new law change SNAP administrative processes, such as how work requirement waivers are granted and how often SNAP benefit amounts are reevaluated.
As of Sept. 3, Sellers, who oversees Lynchburg’s social services department, had not received communication from state officials on when or how such changes should be enforced.
In an emailed statement on Aug. 21, a spokesperson for the state Department of Social Services told Cardinal News that the agency is “currently awaiting further guidance from our federal partners and will be best positioned to provide specific details at that time.”
States pick up the pieces — and the tab
The One Big Beautiful Bill also changes who’s expected to pay for benefits once eligible recipients are determined.
Starting Oct. 1, 2026, the federal government will reduce its share of SNAP administrative costs from 50% to 25% and require states to pay the difference. That will bump Virginia’s contribution to administrative costs from about $174 million to $262 million, according to the General Assembly memorandum.
Starting Oct. 1, 2027, some states will be expected to pay a portion of the benefit costs as well. The required state share will range from 0% to 15% and will be calculated based on error rates, or the accuracy of each state’s SNAP eligibility and benefit determinations as measured by overpayments and underpayments. According to the memorandum, states can choose whether to use their error rates from 2025 or 2026 to determine the initial cost shift.
Based on Virginia’s 2024 error rate of 11.5%, the most recent data available, the state would have to pay the full 15% share, totaling $264.8 million per year for benefit costs, according to the memorandum.
Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued Executive Directive 13 on Aug. 13 to launch an initiative to reduce SNAP error rates in local social service agencies. States that have a 6% or lower error rate do not have to contribute any money to SNAP benefits.
Virginia’s 11.5% error rate is slightly higher than the 2024 national average error rate of 10.9%, according to data from the Food and Nutrition Service.
According to the Congressional Budget Office’s August report, it’s up to states to make ends meet when cost shifts take effect.
“CBO expects that there will be a variety of state responses to the new requirement: some states will maintain current benefits and eligibility; others will modify benefits or eligibility or leave the program altogether,” the report states.
Del. Sam Rasoul, D-Roanoke, sits on the House Appropriations Committee and said Virginia has no intention of leaving the SNAP system. Solutions to “plug the hole” will be explored when the state budgeting process picks up in January, he said. Until then, there are too many unknowns — ranging from who the governor will be to how much SNAP costs will actually be shifted onto the commonwealth — to have a productive conversation about the future of SNAP in Virginia.
Rasoul said that, in the meantime, “the number one thing we can be doing is send a clear signal to all of our federal officials that they need to scale back some of the damage that was done.”
“There is no sideline warrior here,” he said. “We have to let our officials know the ramifications of what’s happening when we are filling the pockets of billionaires at the expense of people who need help the most.”
Del. Wendell Walker, R-Lynchburg, said Virginians should lean on each other instead.
“People have a tendency always to turn to government — call Richmond, call Washington — every time we have a little crisis moment. I think the smarter way is to turn to the people here that care about our communities and want to help.”
Walker said the key is to turn a “sky-is-falling” mentality into a “roll-up-your-sleeves” mentality. He applauds the nonprofits already doing so.
Walker said he hopes the federal SNAP changes made in the One Big Beautiful Bill will make the SNAP system more efficient and targeted toward the people who need help the most.
“I know that anytime you have large organizations with a lot of money like this, there’s a tendency to be some fraud and waste,” he said. “Let’s clean things up.”
Regional food banks feel the pressure of already high demand
Virginians who fall through the cracks of the SNAP system are caught by the emergency food network, which consists of the food banks that act as regional warehouses and distribution centers and the food pantries that directly serve neighbors in need.
SNAP provides nine meals for every one meal that the emergency food network provides, said Les Sinclair, communications manager for the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank based in the Augusta County community of Verona.
But as the cost of food, rent, utilities and other essentials rise, more and more people are turning to food banks and pantries to get the food they need, he said. Across the 25 counties in its service area, the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank provided food for an average of 171,200 guests per month in the 2025 fiscal year. That’s up from 103,500 in the 2019 fiscal year, he said, or a 65% increase.
“We’re serving more people now than even at the height of the pandemic, which is incredible to think about. We’re not in an emergency situation,” he said. “It just means that more people are not able to make ends meet.”
Irvine said food pantries within Feeding Southwest Virginia’s 26-county region have also seen recent growth in monthly visits, averaging about 20% increases from last year to this year.
Feeding Southwest Virginia doesn’t have the resources to keep up, she said. The organization feeds 114,000 people monthly, but estimates from Feeding America show that more than 170,000 people in the region face food insecurity, she said. The southwest’s food insecurity rate of about 19% is the highest in the state.
Right now, both Sinclair and Irvine said their organizations are purchasing food to keep up with the demand that each of their pantries faces — the organizations partner with about 400 pantries each, which help to distribute food to each nook and cranny of their coverage area. The system has historically operated solely on donations from grocery stores, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and other large food producers, so purchasing food has been a new challenge, Irvine said.
Irvine said about $3 million of Feeding Southwest Virginia’s $40 million budget goes toward buying food today. The logistical stress of expanding supply and operations is unlike anything she’s experienced in her 44 years of leading the organization, she said. And that pressure will grow if Virginians who lose their SNAP benefits under new legislative changes turn to her organization for help.
“We just don’t know where we’re going to get all the resources to meet the need. The bottom line is that there’s fear and instability for everyone,” she said. “It’s very stressful on organizations that are trying to navigate through changes that we’ve never experienced.”
As demand grows, pantries will likely have to follow food banks’ lead, Sinclair said.
“These small food pantries are going to need to lean into purchasing more food, and they simply don’t have the resources to do it,” he said. “And that poses the real challenge.”
Local nonprofits step up as last line of defense
Lynchburg offers a case study of the situation Sinclair described. The city has a 15% food insecurity rate, slightly higher than its four surrounding counties, which have an average food insecurity rate of about 12%, according to Feeding America.
The leaders of several food-focused nonprofits in the city say they’ve felt the pressure of increased demand, just like the food bank that passes supplies down to them. They’ve started to purchase food in recent years because donations can’t keep up.
In 2021, Park View Community Mission’s food pantry served 174 families a week. Now, average weekly visits are at about 360, Blake said. A few miles away, Lynchburg Daily Bread served about 300 lunches on busy days in 2021, said Director of Operations Laurel Hovey. Today, 800 meals per day feels average, if not a little slow.
Hovey said SNAP already affects demand at her organization. At the end of the month, when benefits start to run out, she serves closer to 900 meals per day. If those same clients get their benefits reduced or lose them entirely, she expects the line at her door to grow longer.
“If we start seeing that end-of-the-month number remain consistent throughout the month, we’re going to have to get really creative with budgeting to purchase more food,” she said. “The donations already don’t support what we do.”
Blake, whose organization operates out of a church that closed in 2007, said the walls seem to close in on Park View’s storage and shopping space every day. Stacks of nonperishables are now piled up along the walls of the community dining room — it’s the only overflow space he has.
“I can’t grow much more with our current staffing and space and logistics, not without a huge influx of cash,” he said. “We’re spending more money on food, and thankfully, we’ve been able to manage that so far. But all of those things — space, people, finances, all of them — have a tipping point, right?”
Even though SNAP work requirements haven’t taken effect yet, Blake said he’s felt the effects of the One Big Beautiful Bill cuts in another key way. The legislation defunded SNAP Ed, a nutrition education program that once hosted cooking classes and healthy eating information sessions at Park View. Lessons went a long way in helping clients find community and make smarter eating choices for their health needs.
“There was a real camaraderie that came with doing that together: ‘I’m not alone in this. I’m ready to take charge of my eating habits,’” he said. “But that’s gone. And this is the first impact of the Big Beautiful Bill that we’re really seeing in concrete ways.”
John Thompson, executive director of Red Truck Ministry, said he’ll keep his eyes on his mission regardless of what happens with SNAP cuts. He drives his refurbished Coca-Cola truck — now a mobile food pantry — to food deserts around town, helping about 14,000 visitors throughout the year.
“It is the responsibility of the community to look after our own,” he said. “We’re not going anywhere.”
The nonprofit leaders agree that they’ll never give up hope. The stakes are too high, Blake said, because they know that the work they do is about more than calories on a plate.
Food is empowerment to thrive at work and school, Blake said. Food is medicine to keep bodies and minds healthy, Hovey said. Food is faith, Thompson said — a reminder that there’s hope for tomorrow.
“We’re not going to stop, because we can see the good that we’re doing,” Hovey said. “You can look someone in the eye and know you made a difference in their day. That’s all we need to keep moving forward.”