Arizona food banks scramble after Trump deeply cuts food aid

Arizona’s food banks are working to mitigate the twin problems of the Trump administration’s deep cuts to food aid and impending cuts to the federal program that gives America’s working poor money to purchase groceries.

Representatives from those food banks told the Arizona Mirror that the demand for food assistance is higher than ever — and that there’s simply no way they’ll be able to fill the hole that will be left by cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, also known as SNAP, that will be implemented in the near future.

In the spring, the Trump administration suddenly cut around $500 million in food aid across the country. That canceled around 1.9 million pounds of food deliveries scheduled to go to food banks in the Grand Canyon State, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data obtained by ProPublica and shared with the Arizona Mirror. 

The funding for those food deliveries, scheduled for May through September, had already been allocated through the Emergency Food Assistance Program. Food banks were given zero notice before the deliveries were abruptly canceled. 

Those canceled deliveries to Arizona food banks included 168,750 pounds of eggs, 583,320 pounds of chicken and 460,530 pounds of milk. 

About half of that total, nearly 900,000 pounds of food, was intended for St. Mary’s Food Bank, which serves about two-thirds of the state and is one of the largest food banks in the country.

“It’s been a little bit of a hiccup, but it hasn’t been debilitating,” Milt Liu, president and CEO of St. Mary’s Food Bank, told the Mirror. “And we are working really hard to shore up our other sources of food so that our neighbors don’t feel it.” 

St. Mary’s Food Bank has been making up for the decrease in deliveries from the federal government by purchasing more food. 

But, Liu said, it’s unlikely the organization can keep that up forever. 

And, according to Jerry Brown, public relations director for St. Mary’s Food Bank, it’s not possible to purchase enough eggs and milk to make up for those government deliveries, so St. Mary’s tries to replace them with foods of similar nutritional value. St. Mary’s has also had to decrease the number of items in its emergency food boxes from around 13-15 items to 10-12. 

St. Mary’s provided around 130 million pounds of food to Arizonans in need last year and expects to provide even more this year. 

St. Mary’s has worked to insulate itself against changes outside of its control, with around 65% of its food provided by private donations and 20% coming from the federal government. 

On Wednesday, St. Mary’s opened a new volunteer center and warehouse in Phoenix as part of its strategy to handle future challenges. 

“In the past, it was COVID — today, it might be related to what happens in Washington, D.C.,” Liu said. “Whatever that is, we want to be prepared. And, so, we’ve been shoring up other sources of food and financial donations to be best prepared.” 

Also from May through September, Community Food Bank, which serves southern Arizona, and United Food Bank, which serves the East Valley, along with Gila, Pinal, and parts of Apache and Navajo counties, each had almost 448,000 pounds of food deliveries canceled. 

During the same timeframe, Yuma Community Food Bank lost about 196,000 pounds of food to the cuts. 

Like St. Mary’s, Community Food Bank has also had to reduce the number of items it gives out to each person “to stretch our resources as far as possible,” spokesman Chris Firmage told the Mirror. 

It’s difficult to determine exactly the breakdown of how much Community Food Bank relies on food from the federal government because it procures food from so many places, Firmage said. 

However, he added that the bank’s Emergency and Senior Supplemental food programs “are a huge part of what we do and are funded completely by the federal government.”

While the state’s food banks work to insulate themselves from future uncertainty, the needs of the community are increasing — and massive cuts to SNAP, formerly known as food stamps, are on the horizon. Those cuts are thanks to expanded work requirements and cost shifts to the states as a result of the Trump administration’s “One Big Beautiful Bill” signed in early July. 

Visits to St. Mary’s Food Bank have increased by 10% annually since 2022, with 2.4 million visits in the 2025 fiscal year, which ended June 30. 

Community Food Bank, which provided 35 million pounds of food to 171,000 people last year, is also feeling the strain, and expects that demand will only increase. 

“As food costs, and the overall cost of living, remain high, there is an increased need for our services across Southern Arizona, and we expect that need to increase even further with the government shutdown,” Firmage said. “We’ve tried to be mindful of inconsistent funding, and are stretching our resources as much as possible to continue to distribute supplemental food.”

The strain on food banks in Arizona and across the nation are expected to increase with the implementation of SNAP expanded work requirements and the shifting of costs to the state that could result in lost benefits to 70,000 Arizonans and lost and decreased benefits to nearly half of the 900,000 state residents who rely on SNAP. 

Liu doesn’t think it’s possible for the state’s food banks to make up the difference once those work requirements are implemented. 

“The math doesn’t add up,” he said. “The number of dollars that are being talked about, we could never find that amount of food to close the gap. So, we don’t believe we can cover it. The math just doesn’t work. But we’re going to do everything we can to take care of Arizona.”

The work requirements, along with increased administrative costs to the states, are expected to decrease SNAP funding by $187 billion across the country over the next decade, according to the Congressional Budget Office. 

Firmage is a little more hopeful about Community Food Bank’s ability to deal with future obstacles. 

“There’s always a worry of how to meet increased demand,” he said. “In difficult times, the private sector has a history of stepping up to the challenge, and we’ll have to lean on our amazing community partners and incredible donor base to get through this.”

This story was first published by Arizona Mirror, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.