If you’re in the United States, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) funds and benefits have been delayed, causing millions of Americans who rely on them to go hungry. When living paycheck to paycheck, even a short delay creates impossible choices—feed your family or pay rent. Buy groceries or keep the lights on. The majority of SNAP recipients are children, disabled people, and the elderly.

Food insecurity is at an all-time high and families in our communities need help now more than ever. According to the USDA, over 42 million Americans (12% of the population) in 2025 have relied on SNAP benefits to help supplement their income to put food on the table. In my area, according to research done by the Greater Boston Food Bank in partnership with Mass General Brigham, approximately 2 million Massachusetts adults (that’s more than 1 in 3 residents) faced food insecurity in 2024. With increased cost in food and decrease in available support, families are struggling during the most demanding season of the year.

If you don’t know how this applies to you or to my content, people with ADHD are more likely than non-ADHDers to rely on government assistance, due to issues of inadequate employment opportunities, housing insecurity, executive dysfunction, co-morbid mental health conditions, chronic illness, and lower educational outcomes. This all translates to, people with ADHD are struggling to survive in our society and our government is actively making it worse by removing social programs and governmental assistance needed to keep people alive and safe. This affects communities beyond SNAP recipients as well. It can decrease spending at your local grocery stores, stifling the local economy and affecting employment. Going hungry makes it more difficult for kids to attend school and adults to go to work. A lack of spending can cause an increase in groceries prices.

However, it shouldn’t have to affect you for it to affect you.

Here are a couple of ways you can help:

• Help your local food bank:
  • If you have canned goods to donate, you can start there.
  • Also, consider donating cash directly to the food bank. This allows the food bank to use those funds to buy directly what is needed within their community (while not contributing to overstocking of goods). Plus, food banks can stretch that dollar further than we can with wholesale pricing and additional savings opportunities as a nonprofit.
  • Volunteer your time at a local food bank. Reach out to one in your area to ask the best way to do this.
  • If your company has a match program, you may be able to double your impact by making a financial contribution and asking them to match.
• Be a Meal Buddy: Join local groups vis Facebook or Nextdoor to see who may need help in your community. You can send gift cards through Instacart or DoorDash (or order them food directly). You can also offer to do someone’s grocery shopping and deliver them yourself.
• Community Pantries and Little Free Pantries/Fridges: If you look around your community you may be able to find pop-up Little Free Pantries (that look like little free libraries and are often next to them) where you can donate directly to the community. Look for Freedges (community fridges) in your community as well, where you can help stock a local community fridge. I’ve seen these outside of churches and in lower income communities in bigger cities. Check the site above to find one near you. You may also see information circulating around these community resources for how to provide financial donations, volunteering, or specific items in need, so look to the organizers for how to be the most impactful with your support.
• Rally your community: At my office, we have started a food drive for our local food bank. I’ve also started a donation box at my daughter’s school. Maybe you can find time as a group to volunteer at your local food bank.
• Call your reps: This one is scary for a lot of people, especially those who are phone-averse (many ADHDers and Millennials). If you avoid phone calls at all costs, consider sending an email. But if you can, calling directly can be very impactful. Check out the AFL-CIO Stop the Shutdown to bring you to a page with a script for calling your rep to demand the government reopen and allow these funds to go to the families who rely on them.

People deserve to eat. Food is not a privilege. With our brief time here on earth, let’s leave behind a legacy to be proud of. Let’s go do some good.