Federal Cuts Will End Nutrition Education Program for New Yorkers on SNAP – City Limits

“I didn’t like lettuce before I took the class,” Allison Merlos, 10, said of a nutrition workshop for kids she took last year through the long-standing SNAP-Ed, which is slated to end soon after federal funding cuts. “Now I love it, I can eat five plates of lettuce.”

On a sunny afternoon in mid-April, alongside a school in Inwood, a volunteer with Children’s Aid prepared a spring stir-fry with broccoli florets and soy sauce for families to sample. More than 20 orange shopping bags filled with golden apples, shallots, zucchini, broccoli and bok choy sat behind the folding table volunteers had set up.

Under a tent, workers sold additional produce and eggs at a discount to families enrolled in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. Mothers would arrive at the tent before their children were dismissed from school, take their bag of groceries, express their gratitude and leave with a smile.

What most of them didn’t know is that SNAP-Ed, a federal nutrition education program which made this distribution possible, is slated to end, as its funding will run out at the end of the federal fiscal year in September. At least two New York organizations that run local SNAP-Ed programs will close them in the coming weeks, losses that advocates say will impact Black and Latino communities which already have higher rates of food insecurity and diet-related health conditions.

“Sadness,” Estela Galvez reacted in Spanish when she heard that the program was ending. “Our families also have the right to eat fresh food. And nutritious food too.”

President Donald Trump’s H.R. 1 package, also known as the “One, Big Beautiful Bill” passed by Congress last year, reshaped and gutted SNAP—adding new work requirements and shifting costs of up to $1.4 billion a year onto New York State.

It also eliminated money for the long-standing SNAP-Ed program, which teaches anyone eligible for SNAP— including people with disabilities—how to buy and cook healthy meals. New York lost approximately $29 million annually for SNAP-Ed, and so far, the state’s recent budget negotiations have failed to mention any replacement funding for it.

Overseen by the New York State Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance, SNAP-Ed programs helped more than 2.2 million residents across the state in 2024, both with nutrition and cooking classes and through the SNAP-Ed Food Box—portions of local produce, like the orange bags that people received at the Children’s Aid event—meant to further support low-income communities’ access to fresh, affordable food.

“As with other historic cuts and cost shifts adopted in the H.R. 1 bill, approved by the Republican Congress and signed by President Trump in July, eliminating funding for SNAP-Ed does nothing to help Americans and only increases the risk that New Yorkers in need will experience food insecurity, health issues, and economic hardship,” an OTDA spokesperson said in a statement.

Though the SNAP-Ed funding cut was announced last year, only one of the six participants City Limits interviewed at the April event was aware that the program would end—and in a matter of weeks for some providers.

In New York, seven community-based organizations run SNAP-Ed, providing a variety of evidence-based curricula under the program. They also partner with schools, health care organizations, retailers, farmer’s markets, and other community organizations.

At the recent Children’s Aid event, volunteers had set out locally produced fruits and vegetables —tomatoes, shallots, zucchini, as well as eggs—on a table, which SNAP recipients could use their benefits to buy, getting more mileage out of their purchases through the state’s Double Up Food Bucks program, which doubles every dollar spent on produce at certain retailers.  

“Our Food Box season is scheduled to end after early June, which is quite disappointing, because June is really the start of the peak growing season in New York,” Taisy Conk,  director of the food and nutrition programs at Children’s Aid.

SNAP-Ed providers also host workshop-style cooking classes targeting different populations. Food Bank for NYC, for example, ran a program called “Just Say Yes to Fruits and Vegetables,” which taught SNAP-eligible adults, especially seniors and those with chronic diet-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease, how to prepare healthy low-cost recipes using common ingredients. 

Children’s Aid previously ran a nutrition class for elementary school children. City Limits spoke with four students who participated in last year’s program in Inwood, which was discontinued due to the federal cuts. “I didn’t like lettuce before I took the class,” said Allison Merlos, 10. “Now I love it, I can eat five plates of lettuce.”

Her enthusiasm and love for vegetables was not unique in the group. Sophia Perez, 10, for example, shared how much she liked “rainbow salad.”

“Basically, it’s where you can put vegetables of all colors into one salad, and then we all eat,” Perez explained. 

According to OTDA, after attending a single session, more than 80 percent of SNAP-Ed participants said they planned to make changes as a result of what they learned: eating more fruits and vegetables, drinking less soda and other sweet drinks, being more active, comparing prices when shopping, and cooking more meals at home.

“These cuts mean the loss of countless discovery moments,” said Latrice Stirrup-Chance of Common Threads, a program provider.

The seven SNAP-Ed providers in New York are stretching their last round of funding as much as possible, and are downsizing or relocating entire teams that previously ran the programming. 

Children’s Aid, for example, had 22 staff members working on SNAP-Ed; now only four remain.  At Food Bank for NYC, seven staff members lost their jobs, including the program director and other full-time nutrition education staff. And at another provider, BronxWorks, five staff were reassigned to other roles within the organization.

“These cuts are undoing years of progress, and they’re hitting our city’s most vulnerable the hardest,” Conk said.

Mairemi Escolastico, a 35-year-old participant, expressed her frustration after she learned of the program’s impending end. 

“It’s a shame, honestly,” she said in Spanish. “Many times, they [politicians] think only in numbers, because at the end of the day, I feel that politics is what it is—and it’s not something that will change from today to tomorrow. But if we see ourselves not as citizens, but as just a number in this roulette, we don’t grow as a society.”

The program’s end comes as other SNAP eligibility changes, including the new work requirements, are expected to cut tens of thousands of New Yorkers off from the benefits amid rising food prices. 

“I would ask that, if they have an opportunity to cut costs elsewhere to allocate those funds to this kind of benefit—namely, food—that would be great,” said Esperanza Cordoba, a 40-year-old SNAP-Ed participant.

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