Feeding Georgia Executive Director Julie Bryant Kuykendall
In every single county across Georgia, families are struggling. Housing costs have increased, grocery prices are high, childcare fees are pinching budgets and frustrating fuel costs have made just getting around even tougher.
At kitchen tables, where families go to sit down for a good meal, to catch up and relax and take their minds off the day, many are now finding there is simply not enough food.
Feeding America, the nation’s largest hunger relief organization, has released its annual Map the Meal Gap study — research that estimates food insecurity, meal costs, and the resources families need in our country. The headline of the study is stark: hunger touches 100% of U.S. counties and congressional districts.
Nationwide, an estimated 47.9 million people experienced food insecurity at some point during the year. Closing that gap would have required an additional $23.16 per person each week — a national shortfall of roughly $33.7 billion, according to the study.
For a Southern, largely rural state like ours, the regional findings are impossible to ignore. Rural communities make up 62% of U.S. counties but 86% of the counties with the highest food-insecurity rates. And the South, home to 45% of the nation’s counties, accounts for a striking 84% of those hit hardest.
Georgia sits squarely in the middle of that map. Here at home, approximately 1 in 6 Georgians faces food insecurity, including 1 in 5 children and 1 in 9 seniors. These numbers remind us that hunger isn’t confined to one community or one part of the state—it exists in every county, affecting children, seniors, working families, and veterans alike.
Our food banks across the state are seeing the impact every day. In the last year, federal policy shifts in nutrition assistance programs have coincided with tougher economic conditions. Last year, for the first time ever, food provided to hungry families through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) was cut off during the government shutdown.
Food banks, which supply the church pantries and nonprofit organizations that feed neighbors in need, have had to spend more on food purchases, stretch food supplies and work harder to meet a demand that is outpacing food supplies.
When families in America gather around the dinner table, they should have peace of mind that there will be enough nutritious food on the table tomorrow, too. But that’s exactly what’s at risk when our neighbors are feeling squeezed financially.
In Georgia, SNAP helps 1.4M people in need afford groceries, including seniors, veterans and working families. Federal nutrition programs like SNAP not only help families when they face hardships but also provide consistent support to local grocers and farmers, create jobs, and make it possible for entire communities to prosper, even during tough economic times.
A new federal law is, for the first time, requiring states to share the cost of SNAP benefits—penalizing them financially for unintentional paperwork errors made while administering the program. States could now lose millions in federal funding not because of program waste or fraud, but due to bureaucratic mistakes. This loss of funding may force states to make difficult decisions, such as cutting community services, raising taxes or restricting who can access SNAP.
Every $1 in SNAP spending produces $1.54 in economic activity in communities across Georgia. In 2025, approximately $3.3 billion in SNAP benefits kept dollars circulating in Georgia. A disruption to this program won’t just hurt families—it will ripple through our local businesses and agriculture community.
SNAP is a bridge to stability to help families when times get tough, offering a hand up as people work toward self-sufficiency. Georgia can’t balance its budget on the plates of working families. We need federal and state governments to work together to keep SNAP strong for our neighbors facing hunger, and we need Congress to give states more time to bring error rates down and prepare their budgets so that families don’t feel stress when it’s time to put dinner on the table.
Julie Bryant Kuykendall is the executive director of Feeding Georgia, Georgia’s statewide hunger relief network, which unites eight Feeding America food banks to fight food insecurity from Atlanta to the coast. Member food banks partner with more than 2,000 food pantries to reach 156,500 Georgians in need every single week.
