Tribes Are Bracing for Potential SNAP Loss

"In Rapid City, S.D., right outside of the Black Hills, Lakota activist and community leader Natalie Stites Means and the COUP Council, an Indigenous-led nonprofit, are bringing back COVID-19-era meal programs to help feed at-risk families. Through the COUP council, a Rapid City-based nonprofit dedicated to empowering Native people in Rapid City, Stites Means and others are organizing a planning session on Oct. 29."

""We need a plan," Stites Means said. "(Food) is always under attack." That means bringing back the Wotakuye Mutual Aid Society, a program that delivered food to over 3,000 people in 2020. "It is a real crisis on the ground, on the front line," Stites Means said. "This is a manufactured crisis. ... We have a lot of hunger in this community.""

Many tribes hold access to food as a treaty right, and a potential lapse of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program funding on Nov. 1 threatens food security during a prolonged government shutdown. Indigenous advocates are mobilizing mutual aid, meal-train programs, and foraging education to feed affected families. In Rapid City, Lakota leader Natalie Stites Means and the COUP Council are reviving COVID-era meal programs and organizing an Oct. 29 planning session to assess community needs and contributions. The Wotakuye Mutual Aid Society delivered food to over 3,000 people in 2020. Organizers describe the situation as a manufactured crisis with significant hunger in the community.

Read at Truthout