GUILDERLAND — “Our main goal is to give food to people with dignity, respect, and to give them a little bit of hope for the future,” said John “Mac” McDonnell, the director of the Guilderland Food Pantry.

He spoke on Nov. 14 after accepting a $25,000 check secured by Assemblyman Phil Steck.

The event was held at 4 Charles Blvd. inside the pantry, which had neatly stocked full shelves.

“The amount of donations we’ve been receiving since the whole SNAP issue came up is phenomenal,” said McDonnell. “You can see the shelves are full and we’re going to make sure that people get what they need on a regular basis, but also for the holidays that are coming up.”

While payments for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance program had been in jeopardy during the federal government shutdown, they have now been restored through the end of fiscal year 2026.

 However, new rules enacted in July 2025 are causing some households to lose benefits or see them reduced, especially due to expanded work requirements. 

While SNAP is funded, New York state is still awaiting federal funds for other programs like the Home Energy Assistance Program. On Nov. 17, Congressman Paul Tonko and Governor Kathy Hochul held a joint press conference demanding that the Trump Administration release $400 million in federal HEAP funds on which 1.5 million New Yorkers rely.

The state is set to open the program for applications on Nov. 24, but it will only be possible to start accepting applications if the federal government has provided the funds, they said.

“It is a cold day out there,” the governor said at Monday’s event, “and that is a cold reminder of what we’re facing and why we’re gathered here today.

She also noted that the HEAP program began 44 years ago under Republican President Ronald Reagan. “It’s been supported by Democrat and Republican administrations since the very beginning,” said Hochul. “They’ve long recognized the humanity of helping people be warm during cold months, especially in places like New York, which get very cold.”

At Guilderland’s press conference on Nov. 14, McDonnell said, “It takes a village to really pull us all together and, you know, with all their help, the help of the Regional Food Bank, the food pantry coalition, we’re able to make this all happen. We happen to live in a community that is very, very generous.”

“We all know what’s happening out there in the world,” said Guilderland Supervisor Peter Barber in his opening remarks on Nov. 14. “It’s a crazy time out there.”

The week before, toward the end of the Nov. 6 town board meeting, Barber had said, “We seem to be spending more money on making sure that ICE agents are paid who can go off and, with a mask on, raid and take a teacher out of a nursery school or literally take people off the street. And yet we can’t find money to help the most needy in our community. So it’s a roundabout way of saying that I think we all have to step up ….

“I just want to emphasize that the town of Guilderland is doing what we can ….,” said Barber, noting the town itself can’t give money but it launched a food drive. “Right now, we have dozens upon dozens of people who have never felt food insecurity in our community are facing that today.”

Barber said at the Nov. 14 event that Guilderland used to have 200 families using the food pantry. “Now it’s 300 families,” he said. “At some point, it’s going to be 500 families.”

In 2024, the Guilderland Food Pantry had 2,358 family visits, serving more than 6,200 individuals, of which 30 percent were children and 16 percent were seniors. The town has about 37,000 residents.

The pantry distributed 56,233 meals through its regular operations in 2024 and an additional 25,920 meals through its backpack program, which sends 120 needy students in the Guilderland schools home with food to eat over the weekend. This year, the state started providing free breakfasts and lunches to all schoolchildren.

Demand at the Guilderland Food Pantry has increased steadily by 13 percent each year since 2020.

The $25,000 state grant will be used for the backpack program, for holiday meals, and for some new equipment such as a pallet jack to safely manage food deliveries “to make sure we operate safely and efficiently so we can serve more people,” said McDonnell.

Barber and McDonnell both praised the 75 volunteers who staff the food pantry

“It just goes to show how much you care about your community and people who are really at risk,” Barber said to applause.

“My district is predominantly suburban,” said Steck of District 110, which includes Colonie, Cohoes, Watervliet, and part of Guilderland. “So we think in our suburban communities, we don’t have the type of need that the Guilderland Food Pantry serves.”

The numbers show otherwise, he said.

“Times are very, very difficult right now for a lot of people,” said Steck. “The cost of housing is extremely high. It eats up a lot of their wages, doesn’t give people enough disposable income to spend on things like food. We’ve had tremendous inflation in the price of food and they don’t know that tariffs are the solution to that particular problem.”

Steck also said that, with all the concern over SNAP benefits, “I think many of us are shocked at how many people depend on that program.”

One in eight Americans use food stamps.

“These food pantries,” Steck said, “are a supplement to all that, an emergency backstop as it were, but the government cannot relinquish its obligation to make sure that all Americans have proper nutrition.”