As noted in this article, extra benefits for food stamps were given during the Covid years, but those benefits are no longer available.
The average food stamps per senior is only about $180 a month. The fact is, benefits are exhausted within three weeks depending on if a family is cooking a big meal for the holidays.
In Massachusetts, the Healthy Incentives Program offered limited produce to Food Stamps recipients due to the floods this year. Although farmstands do provide vegetables that qualify for benefits, many seniors and disabled individuals do not have vehicles to get to these venues.
As we know, the food banks are a supplement to, or even the primary source, of one's meals. The average food bank overall provides the same foods upon each pickup: canned vegetables, a macaroni and cheese box, spaghetti sauce, noodles, canned fruit, peanut butter, cereal, canned beans, tuna fish, and maybe 1 lb. of hamburger or fish.