Hunger And The Lone Star State

For many Texans, Thanksgiving is synonymous with food. It’s the holiday when families or communities gather to feast on turkey, stuffing, pies, and so much more. But in 2025, Thanksgiving is arriving at a particularly trying time for a majority of Texans. For millions of Texans, hunger and food insecurity are truly top of mind instead of what’s on the Thanksgiving table. 

And no other organization is perhaps more attuned to these concerns than No Kid Hungry Texas, the statewide anti-hunger organization run by the nonprofit Share Our Strength. They recently released new polling that paints a stark picture of the state of hunger throughout Texas. 

According to their latest data, a whopping 85 percent of Texans report that food costs have increased faster than their earnings, a number that’s slightly up from 81 percent last year. Additionally, 71 percent of adults and 78 percent of families (those responding with children 18 and younger) are saying they will have to choose between purchasing enough food or other essentials.

This hunger crisis was recently exacerbated by the government shutdown, which lasted 43 days. The longest government shutdown in history meant there was nearly a two-week delay for Texans to receive their SNAP benefits. 

But with the government now reopen and funding for SNAP secured for another year, there’s still a lot that organizations like No Kid Hungry Texas are worried about. The Signal spoke with Stacie Sanchez Hare, Director of No Kid Hungry Texas to hear more about these concerns.

According to Sanchez Hare, one of the biggest risks for further food insecurity is a provision tucked into HR 1 (what the Trump administration calls the One Big Beautiful Bill). Though the Trump White House has called HR 1 a “once-in-a-generation” piece of legislation that restores fiscal sanity, analysis from No Kid Hungry shows the bill will cut almost $200 billion from SNAP over the next ten years.

Sanchez Hare notes that it’s also going to become more burdensome on states as administrative costs of distributing SNAP shift from the national to state level. That’s going to be a major strain for SNAP. “The states cannot fill the gap, even a wealthy state like Texas,” says Sanchez Hare.

This is a major and looming crisis for organizations like No Kid Hungry Texas, which has already been trying to warn about the increased state of food insecurity in places like Texas. This is now the third year they have commissioned a state of hunger survey, and these latest results have shown a “real level of urgency” says Sanchez Hare.

And yet this isn’t the first time this year No Kid Hungry Texas has been trying to raise alarm bells. Earlier this year, Governor Abbott issued a sole line-item veto to the state budget, eliminating a summer food program (known as Summer EBT) that had widespread bipartisan support. The $60 million funding would have gone to qualified Texas families for free or reduced food in the summer and potentially have reached 3.75 million children.

Abbott’s reasoning for the line-item veto was “uncertainty” on the federal level. And Abbott has seemingly left the door open for the funding to return once there is more “clarity” on a federal matching rate. For Sanchez Hare and the rest of her team at No Kid Hungry Texas, the decision from Abbott was devastating. And they have been working overtime to try and reach as many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to try and build a coalition to get the funding returned.

But getting a groundswell of support has been challenging. A press conference stakeholders were set to hold after the Abbott veto had to be postponed after the devastating flooding in Hill Country over the summer. And then there was the quorum break and special sessions that further took attention away from groups combating hunger in Texas. “It has been hard to break through the noise,” admits Sanchez Hare. 

Still, she and No Kid Hungry Texas do believe there is a way forward for states like Texas to implement things like Summer EBT. Sanchez Hare points out that one of the biggest champions for Summer EBT is Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders, a Republican. In fact, 37 states have also followed the Arkansas lead in allocating funds for Summer EBT. 

Thus, No Kid Hungry Texas continues to raise awareness and take the message to the public and elected officials. “We continue to pull levers to find out what works because for Texans to miss out on five years of this program is wholly unacceptable.” 

As many Texans prepare for a Thanksgiving under the shadow of massive food insecurity, the mission of No Kid Hungry Texas feels even more crucial. Hunger tends to be heavily intertwined with the overall state of the economy. Rising unemployment and higher cost of living often portend increased food insecurity.

This is definitely on Sanchez Hare’s mind as she and her family prepare for Thanksgiving, and she spent a recent evening volunteering at her local food bank. That reminded Sanchez Hare that the very state motto for Texas is “friendship.”

Ensuring that everyone in the state remains fed should really be intrinsic to Texans. “It is just a moral imperative to make sure people in our community are fed.”