The longest government shutdown in U.S. history is over, and Oregonians are getting federal food benefits again.

But at a Portland-area food pantry, the temporary freeze in food assistance offered a window into the bigger issue of hunger. And even with SNAP restored, the need has not gone away.

On a blustery day earlier this month, people lined up outside the Packed with Pride pantry in Tigard even before the doors were open.

Strong winds threatened to blow over a canopy as two volunteers battled to prop it up. There, food pantry patrons could take cover from the rain until it was time for them to get a number inside and grab a shopping cart.

Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits were on hold that afternoon, and the federal government was still shut down.

Payments would be restored the following day, but that was not enough to get Oregon out of an ever-growing need for food among low-income families.

Even now, with food benefits restored, food pantries like Packed with Pride are only getting busier.

“It’s tough sometimes,” said Margie Yemoto Greene, the executive director of the Foundation for Tigard Tualatin Schools, which operates Packed with Pride. “But humanity has shown up in a lot of ways these past couple weeks.”

Lately, she’s taken a lot of calls from people asking how they could help. She’s grateful for the support. But she also feels angry that so many people were deprived of a necessity like food.

“This is a man-made crisis,” Yemoto Greene said. “It could have been completely avoided.”

More visitors line up at food pantries

Packed with Pride leases its pantry space from a back room at a church.

When the doors opened on a recent Thursday, the floors were already vacuumed, the aisles were stocked with canned vegetables, canned tuna and salmon, salty snacks and fresh fruit and vegetables. And N.W.A’s “Express Yourself” was one of the songs in the rotating playlist coming from a speaker in the back of the room.

As people came in, Elder Matt White, who is in his second year as a Mormon missionary and grew up in Tigard, greeted visitors. He was the first face people saw walking into the pantry.

He was in charge of checking them in or signing them up if they were new to the pantry, and assigned them a number that he later called when it was their turn to grab a shopping cart.

“I can see that people don’t feel too good,” he said. “They feel worried, anxious.”

Kimmarie Baranco, the operations manager at the pantry, is usually out on the floor. That could mean moving frozen chicken and vegetables from the large walk-in freezers outside to the indoor freezers. Or it could mean checking in on people and trying to make them smile.

By the time the doors at the pantry closed that day, most of the shelves were empty. They ended up serving 125 families that night.

“It was a good night. It was pretty typical,” Baranco said. “I thought we would do more.”

Reflecting on the day, she said she hopes one day food pantries are not needed, though she doesn’t think that will happen in her lifetime. “Hunger is a political issue,” she said with a sigh. “It could be fixed.”

Baranco said she often tries to gauge people’s mood when they visit the pantry, and lately, it’s been tense.

Oregon began tightening SNAP eligibility requirements in October to comply with federal changes passed through Congressional Republicans’ tax-and-spending bill known as the One Big Beautiful Bill. There are many changes, which include new work requirements for adults ages 55-64.

“I feel like it’s a little bit stressful. Maybe that’s me,” Baranco said. “People have come out right and said, like, ‘I don’t have SNAP.’”

Anecdotally, she said, she’s seeing more single, middle-aged people. She suspects it’s because of the recent SNAP changes, plus groceries and medicine are just becoming more unaffordable.

What’s not so anecdotal is the number of people the pantry is serving these days.

In late October, the pantry served the most families it’s ever seen in a single day, more than 140. The pantry also sees about 20 new families every day it’s open. It used to be that they saw five or 10 new families a week, Baranco said.

And Packed with Pride is not alone. Food banks across Oregon have reported an increase in visitors, even before the lapse of SNAP funding. Some food bank officials say they’re serving twice the number of people they did through the COVID-19 pandemic.

SNAP returns, but the need for food still persists

A week after SNAP benefits hit people’s accounts, the pantry was still not catching a break.

“A relief? No. Nothing permanent. Absolutely not,” Margie Yemoto Greene said.

She said the first day the pantry opened after SNAP was restored it might have been a bit quieter, but they were still seeing new people. “And then the holidays are coming up.”

She said she felt some relief, at least, that people who still have SNAP access could go back to some sense of normalcy.

“But the reality is there’s so many other concerns going on in our lives and their lives, especially with the rising cost of everything else,” she said. “I just spoke with somebody who went from $70 a month to $900 a month for their [health insurance] premiums.”

Thanksgiving is coming up. It’s usually the busiest time of the year for food pantries. Yemoto Greene has been putting out calls to see if she can find a grocery store to donate turkeys.

“This is a really big problem and it’s not going away anytime soon, because the root of food insecurity is a lot more than a SNAP program,” she said. “It’s a lot more than a federal shutdown. There’s a lot more to it.”

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2025/11/22/packed-with-pride-pantry-tigard/