First-Time Brockton Food Pantry Client Shares Experience After Family Loses SNAP Benefits

Thomas didn’t expect to need to visit Catholic Charities South’s food pantry to support his family. But when they lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits because of new work requirements, he needed to find a way to keep food on the table.

“Having those benefits was certainly very useful and took a lot of stress off of me,” explained Thomas, who is over 60 years old and supports his two adult sons and his granddaughter. “Coming to the food pantry is not something I have had to do in the past.”

On his first visit to the pantry earlier this fall, Thomas said he was not familiar with the process and was grateful for the staff’s understanding as he navigated this new part of his life.

“The experience with Catholic Charities has been very nice,” said Thomas, who works part-time. “I would expect that anyway, but you just never know.”

Thomas’ family is among the nearly 200,000 people in Massachusetts who have lost access to SNAP benefits since the federal government’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act became law in July 2025. Federal food-purchasing assistance has been in place in the United States since the 1930s, and SNAP assisted as many as 41 million Americans.

Among the burdensome changes made to SNAP by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act legislation are increasing the age limit to receive a work exemption from 55 to 65 years old and implementing a 20-hour weekly work requirement for adults.

Those restrictions led in part to increased demand across Catholic Charities Boston’s four food pantries. From Sept. 2025 to Sept. 2026, there was a 25 percent increase in food distributions at agency pantries, totaling nearly 16,000. At the Brockton pantry, 173 new households were registered from July to Sept. 2026, including Thomas’.

“You just do the best you can,” said Thomas. “Some days it gets really stressful, so you just play it day by day.”