Altadena sees long lines at event distributing food, toys to families amid SNAP benefit delays
ALTADENA, Calif. (KABC) -- Amid ongoing delays in the allocation of SNAP benefits, a massive turnout was seen Tuesday at an Altadena event where Mattel and the nonprofit Feed the Children distributed food and toys to local families.
"For the last three weeks we've done distribution and every single week we're turning away families," Coco Black of Feed the Children told ABC7, her voice choked with emotion. "You never want to turn away a family. You never want to turn away a family. So that's why we're here, we're committed. We're doing 30 of these resource rallies across the country" within the next two months.
The afternoon event was held at Fair Oaks Burger on Fair Oaks Avenue, prompting long lines.
Nancy Molenda of Mattel said the toy company "is here to play it forward and lend all of our support, feed the children in Altadena, to make sure that children and families get everything they need."
Another nonprofit, Watch It Grow Inc., which provides food and other resources to families in need, also participated in Tuesday's event.
Watch It Grow's CEO Donna Wajid said the organization was "bringing out food, we're bringing out brand new clothes. Today we have diapers, wipes.
"We also have a chef that came and made 250 meals," Wajid added. "And in each one of those boxes there's a food box, a supply box, and a women's essentials box."
Meanwhile, President Donald Trump's administration said Monday that it will partially fund SNAP for November, after two judges issued rulings requiring the government to keep the nation's largest food aid program running.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, had planned to freeze payments starting Nov. 1 because it said it could no longer keep funding it during the federal government shutdown. The program serves about 1 in 8 Americans and is a major piece of the nation's social safety net. It costs more than $8 billion per month nationally. The government says an emergency fund it will use has $4.65 billion - enough to cover about half the normal benefits.
Exhausting the fund potentially sets the stage for a similar situation in December if the shutdown isn't resolved by then.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
