BOSTON (WBZ NewsRadio) — Congresswoman Ayanna Pressley and Congressman Jim McGovern held a discussion session on Friday regarding food insecurity throughout the state.
The event was held at Project Bread, a food assistance charity in Boston. Residents, along with food banks and charities such as La Colabortiva, Eastie Farm, and Project Bread shared their stories of food struggles in a roundtable discussion group.
The congress members hope to bring these stories to Washington D.C. to fight back against budget cuts to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, caused by the Trump Administration’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill.’
Commissioner of the Department of Transitional Assistance Jeffrey McCue said that 1.1 million, or 1 in 6 Massachusetts residents, rely on SNAP, and these cuts will only mean there is less money going around to help these people. One woman at the event said her food stamps decreased from $168 to $23 from this past November to December, and the cuts will not help this decrease.
“Trump’s ‘Big, Ugly Bill’ is a big middle finger to our constituents and to struggling people all across this country, and we need to fight back,” Congressman McGovern said.
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According to Commonwealth Kitchen officials, some farm workers have even stopped going to work due to fear of the mass deportations going on across the U.S., meaning food is being left in the fields to spoil.
McGovern also said that the U.S. government is the one obstacle in the way of fixing much of the food insecurity across the country.
“We have the food, we know what to do, we have the infrastructure, we have everything but the political will,” he said. “We do want to make hunger history; I want to make hunger illegal.”
President and CEO of Project Bread Erin McAleer also spoke on fixing the systems that have caused such uneasiness for so many.
“The systems have failed them, and that’s what we need to do in Massachusetts is reverse those failures,” McAleer said.
More on the event can be found here.
WBZ NewsRadio’s Jay Willett (@JayWillettWBZ) reports.