ROCHESTER, N.Y. – With the uncertainty of SNAP benefits looming, local organizations and individuals are preparing to help people who might lose those benefits.
Foodlink has been working for weeks to brace for the possible SNAP cuts this weekend. The agency is trying to beef up the more than 200 food banks that it supplies locally. But there are also individuals who are doing what they can, to try and help in what could become a crisis.
Jeff Knauss, who was born in South Korea and adopted by a family in the Finger Lakes as a baby, has spent his life building businesses in Upstate New York.
“I’ve been so lucky, I’ve been so fortunate, I think it’s all of our responsibilities to think for anyone who hasn’t had the same privilege and opportunities as us, how can we help those folks get those opportunities so, that’s always been ingrained in me since my upbringing,” Knauss tells News10NBC.
When talk of a SNAP stoppage began, it kept Knauss up at night.
“As I thought about a government shutdown, I was like there is nothing that I can do to change a government shutdown but I found that the best cure to feeling helpless, is to just take action,” he says.
So, that’s what he did. Jeff started what he calls the Upstate NY SNAP Relief Fund. Local families who don’t get their benefits can sign up to get a $150 gift card to Wegmans. Jeff donated the first $10,000 and then things just took off.
“In a few short hours, we had raised thousands of dollars and there were thousands of applications. It went well above my expectations for any of this,” Knauss says.
If SNAP is restored before the weekend, the money will be donated to regional food banks. If not, Upstate New Yorkers who apply on a first come, first serve basis, will be able to pick up the gift cards at Wegmans in the Syracuse and Rochester areas.
“There’s a lot of bureaucracy around the government shutting down and people not getting their benefits and everything and we wanted to take the friction out of all of that and just say, if you want to give to someone you can give here and then we’ll put that money right onto their pocket so they can take action and be able to bridge the gap,” Knauss says.
For more information about Jeff Knauss’s program: Click here
To donate to Jeff Knauss’s SNAP relief fund: Click here
To find a food bank near you: Click here
Upstate NY businessman Jeff Knauss starts SNAP relief fund to help families impacted by potential benefit cuts WHEC.com.
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