Soup Kitchens Didn't Get Enough Food Donations to Offer Thanksgiving Meals

Churches in North Jersey who regularly feed the hungry say they didn’t get enough food donations this year to offer a Thanksgiving meal.

“I used to be able to get turkeys all over the place,” said Brother Lou Mauro at Saint Peters Church in Jersey City.

The Director of Advocacy at the Community Food Bank of New Jersey, Diane Riley, says cuts to SNAP assistance, formerly known as food stamps, has increased the demand for food by 50-percent since the cuts took effect on November 1.

At Ebenezer Baptist Church in Orange, N.J. 84-year-old Lue Ella Jackson says she relied on food from the Food Bank this year since parishioners were not able to donate as much.

“Everybody is cutting back with everything. They’re not getting the food from the stores like the used to," Jackson said. "So we do the best we can.”

She cooked 15 turkeys and all the trimmings to feed 150 hungry families and the homeless.