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Dozens of food pantries and meal sites across Rhode Island will share $1 million in emergency grants from the Rhode Island Foundation to help feed hungry Rhode Islanders until Washington restores the SNAP funding to the state that ended Nov. 1.

“We are set up to meet moments like this. By working with our network of community partners, we are able to put our funding to work quickly and efficiently to feed neighbors who have been coping with the prospect of going hungry,” said David N. Cicilline, the Foundation’s president and CEO.

The Foundation’s grants are just one aspect of the state’s response to the lapse in federal funding for SNAP, which feeds more than 140,000 children, women and men a month.

“Rhode Island is a tight-knit community—a community that helps each other in time of crisis,” said Governor Dan McKee. “We are lucky to have the Rhode Island Foundation meet the SNAP food emergency head on by delivering financial support in every corner of the state, and we thank them for their leadership. No child in Rhode Island should go to bed hungry.”

The Rhode Island Community Food Bank will receive the largest grant, $200,000 to distribute food through its network of more than 130 food pantries and meal sites across Rhode Island. Another $100,000 is going to the Elisha Project, which delivered more than two-and-a-half million pounds of food from Warren to Woonsocket last year.

The balance of the $1 million will go to the state’s network of seven community action program agencies, including the Community Action Partnership of Providence County, the East Bay Community Action Program and the Tri-County Community Action Program; and dozens of nonprofits that focus on basic human needs like food, including Good Neighbors in East Providence, Connecting for Children and Families in Woonsocket, and the North Kingstown Food Pantry. That is in addition to $150,000 in funding that the Foundation already had planned to distribute through its Basic Human Needs grant program.

“Even before this latest crisis, hunger was increasing as Rhode Islanders lost jobs and access to crucial services due to cuts from Washington,” said Cicilline. “Although Rhode Island is rising to this urgent challenge, state government and the philanthropic sector will not be able fill the gap for long. So, we hope the public will join us in helping to keep food on the tables for our neighbors throughout the state until Washington meets its obligation to fund SNAP.”

The Foundation expects to announce an additional round of emergency grants before the end of the month funded in part by donations from the public. Contributions can still be made at rifoundation.org/food.

In addition, the Foundation announced it will match every donation the public makes to Trinity Repertory Company’s Annual Fund during this year’s run of “A Christmas Carol” with an equal grant to the Food Bank, up to a total of $50,000.  The public can trigger the matching grants by contributing to Trinity Rep online at trinityrep.com/match or by texting SCROOGE to 44-321.

The Rhode Island Foundation is the largest and most comprehensive funder of nonprofit organizations in Rhode Island. Through civic leadership, fundraising and grant-making activities, together with neighbors and partners, the Foundation is helping to create progress that lasts.