Local businesses step up to help Albanians impacted by SNAP cuts, government shutdown

ALBANY – The federal government has officially reached the longest shutdown in U.S. history. 

Federal workers like Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents aren’t getting paid, and millions of Americans are awaiting the return of their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits.

Amid the dysfunction, Albany businesses are coming together to ensure vulnerable community members don’t go hungry by providing free meals for children, military families and TSA workers at the Southwest Georgia Regional Airport.

Local restaurants, food trucks and residents have provided free meals for the 18 TSA agents at the local airport who haven’t been paid since the government shut down Oct. 1. TSA agents are considered essential workers and must still show up to work, despite not knowing when their next paycheck will come. 

Hillary Horton, the airport administrative assistant, said the TSA agents are made up of parents or people who drive into Albany for work.

“And you have situations where if you commute, and you don’t have the money to pay for gas, you can’t come in, and you’re using your sick hours or PTO … just to stay afloat,” Horton said. “Head Start is down, so if you’re a parent and your child goes there, what are you going to do? They are left without a choice.”

Out of concern, Horton made a post on her personal Facebook page, inviting local restaurants or businesses who were able to to support these workers in some way. After this post was shared in a local group, it was liked and reposted more than 1,000 times. TSA agents received their first free lunch on Oct. 20, and they’ve been fed every day since by different local businesses. One flight passenger called ahead and asked if she could bring doughnuts. 

“We are getting a multitude of various businesses all the way from restaurants to food trucks just from regular community members who want to do something good and are purchasing meals for these workers,” Horton said. 

One of those businesses was the Honey Baked Ham Co.

“I just felt it was the right thing to do,” Reynolds Horton, the general manager, said. “These people are still working even though they’re not getting paid. They deserve something, some kind of help.”

Horton said Albany’s businesses thrive when they support the community.

Every day the TSA agents have eaten together, like a family, some even bringing their children in for a meal. 

“My heart hurts for my TSA friends,” Hillary Horton said. “The fact that the community cares so much about people they don’t even know is overwhelming. It just makes you glad that you live somewhere that that can happen.”

On the same day SNAP benefits were set to be cut off, the owners of Mi Casa Mexican Restaurant began offering free kids meals to families in need. This was one day after they fed TSA workers at the airport with their food truck. In just five days, owners predict they’ve served about 200 youths in need. 

“We had already been kind of thinking about some ideas to … make sure that kids in our community were fed or just people in general,” Jennifer Zamudio, co-owner of Mi Casa, said. “There’s a lot of people struggling right now. So we’re just doing whatever we can to help out.” 

For the Mi Casa owners, these struggles are personal. Felipe Zamudio, the restaurant co-owner and Jennifer Zamudio’s husband, grew up in a small town in Mexico and came to the U.S. as a young adult for better work opportunities. 

“He grew up in extreme poverty in Mexico and didn’t have food readily available for sometimes weeks at a time,” Jennifer Zamudio said. “I just kept thinking about him as a child and his mom, and I know the stress she must have felt trying to find food for him and his brothers. I don’t want any parents to feel that way. No one should have to feel worried about their kids being fed.” 

She said she also expanded the free meals to military families after hearing that some hadn’t been paid because of the government shutdown.

Mi Casa staff aren’t asking for identification or proof that customers’ received SNAP benefits. Customers just have to have their children, 12 and under, present and must ask for the Mi Casa Kids Special. 

Jennifer Zamudio encouraged other local businesses, if they have the means, to get involved. 

“I would just start with what you can feasibly do,” she said. “It doesn’t have to necessarily be anything large or groundbreaking. Just donating one meal a day, then that’s something to one family. It means the world to them.”

Jennifer Zamudio said she and Felipe Zamudio wanted to pour back into the Albany community, which has poured into them. 

“They’ve given us so much in the past – have helped keep us in business because we always get so much community support for pretty much everything we’ve ever done, and I mean, we made it through COVID just being open for a few months before,” she said. “We feel really honored and humbled to be in a position to do this.” 

She said these free meals will continue until SNAP benefits are reinstated. The Trump administration announced Thursday that it will cut November’s SNAP benefits by 35% rather than the initial 50%. 

Those who wish to help the TSA workers can call the airport at (229) 302-1501. Information and businesses are being posted on the airport’s Facebook page.