When Donver Gardiner and Jacqueline Watson-Gardiner opened Your Neighborhood Food Pantry in May 2023 alongside five of their colleagues, they envisioned the food pantry serving the entire Providence North End neighborhood, from parents with young children to the elderly.
Many Rhode Islanders find that their incomes are not enough to cover the rising costs of living in Rhode Island. According to Watson-Gardiner, the executive director of the pantry, this financial strain has brought many families to their food pantry.
YNFP is open three days a week and serves up to 45 families a day. But recently, inventory has been running out quickly. The pantry restocks every Friday, but by Thursday, their shelves are “almost bare,” Watson-Gardiner said.
Recent funding cuts by the federal and state government to YFNP’s parent organization, Rhode Island Community Food Bank, has caused concern over the future of YFNP’s services. According to Watson-Gardiner, the food pantry gets between 90 to 95% of its food from the RICFB.
Governor Dan McKee’s proposed fiscal year 2026 budget will reduce RICFB’s funding by 31% — from $800,000 to $550,000. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has also paused roughly half of the funding allocated to The Emergency Food Assistance Program. USDA commodities made up close to 30% of the RICFB’s food supply last year.
So far, 14 of the 20 planned truckloads of TEFAP food support intended to arrive at the RICFB by August have been cancelled, according to Kate MacDonald, a spokesperson for RICFB. These deliveries would have delivered 541,000 pounds of food worth $1.2 million, MacDonald added.
RICFB has partnered with 147 member agencies to provide food supplies and a range of services, including housing support, daycare and help with utility bills, MacDonald explained. They currently serve a record-high of almost 85,000 people per month.
Under these mounting financial pressures, RICFB is “expecting the perfect storm right now,” MacDonald said. “Everything is very uncertain.”
MacDonald worries that proposed cuts to other programs — such as Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits — could drive more people into debt and make them reliant on the services of RICFB member organizations.
RICFB “has full shelves right now and is able to provide our agencies with the food they need,” MacDonald noted. But, she added that providing these services has been getting “harder and more expensive to do.”
Nonprofit food hub Farm Fresh R.I. previously administered the Local Food Purchase Assistance Cooperative Agreement Program — a federal initiative that supports food banks and organizations addressing food insecurity — before the program was cut earlier this year.
LFPA grants were meant to distribute over $1.1 million over three years, said Delite Primus, the advancement director for Farm Fresh R.I.
According to Primus, 38% of Farm Fresh’s annual budget comes from federal funding. In mid-March, the nonprofit laid off four staff members. Three other vacant positions have been left unfilled.
Amid a constantly changing federal landscape, Primus also explained that Farm Fresh has kept in “very direct and continuing conversations” with Rhode Island’s national legislators. According to Watson-Gardiner, U.S. Representative Gabe Amo (D-R.I. 1) personally reached out to YNFP to see how they were being affected by the funding cuts.
In a press release sent to The Herald, Amo condemned GOP and Trump administration policies as “jacking up the cost of energy, groceries and gas while stripping working Rhode Islanders of critical support that helps them afford food.”
Senators Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) joined 24 other democratic senators in co-signing a letter condemning the TEFAP cuts. Cutting this program “will have a significant and damaging impact upon millions of people who depend upon this program for critical food assistance,” the letter reads.
“Hopefully (the politicians) are a voice for us as well,” Watson-Gardiner said “Their job is to fight for us.”
