The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation’s largest nutrition assistance program and a vital safety net that serves one in every eight Americans and helps millions of families afford groceries each month. In the fall of 2025, that safety net was suddenly threatened. As a consequence of the federal government shutdown, the federal administration halted November SNAP payments, marking the first time in the history of the program that benefits were disrupted.
For families who rely on SNAP, the implications were immediate and severe. Parents were forced to confront impossible decisions. Should they pay their rent or mortgage, or buy food for their children? As fears of widespread hunger grew, states across the country searched for ways to protect families. In Rhode Island, child advocates and state leaders worked together and moved quickly to develop an innovative solution that helped keep food on the table for thousands of children.
Governor Daniel McKee declared a State of Emergency, directed funds toward food bank support, and launched a statewide call to action. At the urging of leaders from Alliance grantee Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, he also deployed up to $6 million from the state’s Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) stockpile to help tens of thousands of families with children receive partial SNAP benefits during the crisis.
The stakes for children in Rhode Island were particularly high. “In October 2024, 31 percent of all SNAP recipients in Rhode Island were children, and of the children enrolled, 34 percent were under the age of 6. So, it’s an extremely important program for kids, especially for our youngest kids,” said Paige Parks, Executive Director of Rhode Island KIDS COUNT. “There was high anxiety for families, and also for the organizations that serve families and kids…it was really difficult and time-consuming. It took a lot of capacity to figure out what exactly was going on and what to do during a really difficult time.”
Uncertainty was widespread during this time, but leaders at Rhode Island KIDS COUNT received critical guidance through the Alliance network that helped them identify potential solutions and offer this creative path forward.
Leanne Barrett, then the Director of Early Childhood Policy and Strategy at Rhode Island KIDS COUNT, participated in the Alliance’s Family Economic Security Learning Community and joined a strategy call on emergency TANF use during the shutdown. During the call, Barrett asked Karen Chatfield from the National Center for Children and Poverty whether Rhode Island could use its TANF stockpile as an interim measure to meet immediate family needs. Chatfield advised that the funds could be used not only to support SNAP recipients, but also to sustain other essential programs, including the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), as well as Head Start and Early Head Start.
Armed with this information, Barrett and Parks moved quickly. They sent a letter to Governor McKee urging him to release a state plan by October 29th to provide stopgap funding to minimize disruptions to critical services that Rhode Island families rely on. In the letter, they suggested using the more than $100 million in Rhode Island’s unallocated TANF Block Grant funds to provide food assistance to mitigate SNAP disruptions. They also offered assistance from national experts who could guide the state in determining how to deploy these funds most effectively.
The response came quickly. Even before the advocates’ requested deadline, Governor McKee announced a statewide plan at a press conference. Thanks to the idea to utilize the TANF stockpile, roughly 20,000 Rhode Island families with children and dependents received 25 percent of their SNAP benefits on November 1st. Had the shutdown continued until November 15th, another 25 percent would have been distributed at that time.
At a moment when families were facing great uncertainty about how they would feed their children, the stopgap support offered a measure of stability and reassurance during a turbulent time. The collaboration also produced broader ripple effects. Not only did the Alliance network support RI advocates in helping thousands of families gain relief, but it also positioned Rhode Island as a national example of proactive state leadership. “Because we were able to act quickly and we were able to give the governor an idea and then a plan that was responding to real people’s needs with SNAP, he ended up being a really important national example of a governor stepping up and stepping in,” said Barrett. She credits the Governor’s 17-point climb in approval ratings in the final months of 2025, at least in part, to the bold action he took to ensure children in the state would not go hungry.
The team at Rhode Island KIDS COUNT credits the guidance and expertise offered by Chatfield with helping them navigate the crisis and present a workable solution to the Governor. “After the Family Economic Security Learning Community session that Leanne went through, we were able to put our notes together and know how much money is in the stockpile. Karen helped us see we can use it for [SNAP], and it really brought all of the elements together in a way that we needed,” said Parks. She adds, “It was so timely…It helped us tremendously and really sped up our own process for figuring out exactly what we wanted to ask the Governor to do.”
That kind of rapid connection between state advocates and national policy experts is exactly what the Alliance network is designed to facilitate, ultimately helping advocates translate complex federal policy into practical state solutions when families need them most.
“We have been heavy consumers of technical assistance over the many years of working with the Alliance for Early Success on a lot of different topics…To be connected with advocates in other states who have done hard things and try to talk through the challenges they have had is always very helpful,” said Barrett. For Parks, the collective knowledge building offered through the Alliance network is absolutely vital. “We have one sliver, and we can go very much in depth about some topics, but then in another state, they have other expertise, or have tried other things that we can learn from. Then the technical assistance provides the national scope to help us put all of our ideas and knowledge together in a way that is efficient and effective for kids,” she claims.
While the government shutdown that caused SNAP benefit disruptions ended on November 12th, threats to the program may stretch well into the future. Over the next decade, SNAP funding is projected to be reduced by roughly 20 percent, resulting in the largest cut in the program’s history. At the same time, states will be responsible for covering a higher share of administrative costs, requiring them to spend millions more to maintain the program. These changes will place significant strain on state budgets and threaten access to a critical lifeline for families with children.
As federal uncertainty in many areas grows, the role of state advocates, peer learning, and national policy expertise will become even more important. “When things are very unpredictable and challenging for states to figure out what is going on, state-based decision makers, governors, and state agency folks can remember that they have friends in the advocates and that we have ideas, and we have connections to national networks… Sometimes we can get an answer faster and quicker, and having the outside support helps the government get things done,” said Parks.
Rhode Island offers a clear lesson to other advocates: protecting children and families is not only the right thing to do, but it is also a powerful example of what effective collaboration can achieve. When state leaders trust advocates who are backed by strong national networks and shared expertise, they can act quickly, respond to real needs, and ensure that children and families do not fall through the cracks.