09/03/2026
Cindy spent 22 years as a college counselor, helping students navigate systems and paperwork. When her mother died and her older brother Kevin suddenly needed to live on his own at 69, those skills became a lifeline. She found him an apartment, co-signed utilities, and helped him apply for SNAP. "It takes a lot of courage to fill out social service documents," she says. She had that courage. Kevin is learning to have it too.
Kevin, now 74, has been on SNAP since 2019. At his peak, during COVID, he received over $200 a month. Now he receives about $48 — a drop Cindy suspects was triggered by a small Social Security raise. "I can't quite figure out the source of why it goes down at the same time food goes up," she says.
He stretches every dollar: a pound of meat lasts weeks in the freezer. He gets, Cindy says, "darn right excited about defrosting some soup.”....Kevin's $48 a month barely covers one bag of groceries. "Four bags of food in a month," Cindy says, "is so much better than one."
Cindy volunteers every Friday at the Akron-Canton Regional Food Bank, where she has learned what the pantry can and can't do. It can't replace SNAP. "I liken it to shopping in only one aisle of the grocery store," she says. "You can't possibly make a healthy meal if you only go down aisle seven."
